AW 45
A good post and having been a shuttle pilot most of my NS life living and eating with "the Bears" I do understand your fears. During my time spent offshore I always tried to answer any concerns you all had about line/shuttle flying but was still surprised how many people were terrified of their journey to work. This was long before the present cluster of incident/accidents. I think I managed to allay some fears but more needs to be done.
It would be interesting to know how many workers are unfortunately killed on their way to the heliport. I know of pilots killed/injured on their way in; interestingy mostly on motorbikes! Which is, therefore, more hazardous - flight or commute to flight?
As far as the present cluster goes I think we should discount the 225 gearbox problems as it is just a matter of luck as to who gets issued with a particular box, just like your new car may be a rogue one. We should concentrate on why the "preventable", used as a very loose description occurred.
As an "old salt" I agree with you that the use and complexity of the autopilot is a worry. I understand that the systems are not user friendly, perhaps because they may be fixed wing nav systems not altered for helicopter usage. I am retired so haven't used the new systems but I can give one example.
Fuel is a very important aspect of operations! On the 365N2 I could call up one page which would show me actual fuel at each way point I had in my route. Destination and diversion being the most important, and is was very accurate. This took alot of stress away if the weather was bad and I was operating to minimums. At least one of the modern a/c flying today you need multiple inputs/page fiddling just to get that info-why. Who in management signed off on a new piece of equipment which was less useful than the 20 yr old one we had before. Yes the new one may be able to do a complicated arrival into Heathrow but that is not required.
It is the same with use of the flying modes-yes they are useful and will protect you but there seems to be a rational to engage at the earliest possible moment. Hand flying skills will be lost.
I was lucky enough to have been in the RAF before joining the NS fraternity so I had lots of hands on flying but even so I did not feel that I was putting the 332L on, rather than just getting into it, until I shuttled with it in the 40s. A brand new co-pilot straight out of training may only have a few hundred hours and once online may accrue hand flying at only a few mins/4hr flight
The Capt who perfectly landed in the Hudson was also a glider pilot. The Air France pilot who didn't seem to know that if you kept the stick back you would stall and crash wasn't a recreational pilot.
There needs to be a bridge built between the users-pilot and procurers-management to make sure what is bought and how it is operated is improved. As a pilot I want a system that is intuitive and requires one button to activate - and that button only does ONE THING!