HF, in the EC225 pressing the go-around early will recover the aircraft from an onset UP.
Visit the AAIB website and read the report on the Blackpool Accident. These crews were flying mostly by hand in VMC conditions with a very high number of landings. The Commander was vastly experienced in doing this. Yet still they managed to get into trouble in a DVE. You re labouring under the illusion that it could not/would not happen to you if your hand skills are good enough. History proves categorically, time and time again this is a flawed argument.
Good use of automation is a very specific skill set that requires practice and procedure to increase safety and not degrade it. Given what we know of this latest accident I will be bold and say had the crew flown fully coupled it would never have happened. It is that simple.
There has never been an accident caused by loss of AP coupler or Autopilot stabilisation. Flying uncoupled is not the answer here. Flying more coupled is. If all of the above helicopters were flown fully coupled, the accidents would never have happened.
Crews fly uncoupled in DVE because they can. Do you think this option should be removed???
We have to get back to reality here. Assuming this was another CFIT (which seems most likely) it is another clear case not of poor hand flying skills but of poor use of automation. All of the CFIT accidents in the NS in the last few years would have been avoided completely if the automation had been used properly. That is fact. We are barking entirely up the wrong tree if we think the answer is to train people to hand fly better. We MUST be teaching people to fly the coupler and use the automation better. My experience from sitting in the back of the sim is that very often people are just not using the automation properly and to its full potential, resulting in the worst form of flying - neither fully coupled nor fully manual. I find that almost all pilots fly without problem when fully decoupled. We train all to fly AFCS off precision and non precision approaches, (usually OEI or with other malfunctions.) It is very rare that they cannot do this and almost always fly without problem to minima, very often with a missed approach as well! We train this in every OPC/LPC. Where we almost always see problems is when people get coupler confusion. This is invariably due to partial coupling followed by distraction and stress. Lack of good and thorough understanding of the coupler/AP increases their stress. Those who suffer this are invariably those who blindly refuse to use it properly or practice using it properly during normal line flying.
The modern day automation is a fantastic step forward and undoubtedly the greatest aid to safety in the offshore environment. The problem is those who insist on not using it properly and fail to embrace it fully.
I too remember my days of flying without any autopilot at all and only basic AFCS in all sorts of ****tiness, and it was occasionally bloody scary. No need for it these days. The AP and AFCS is a “no-go” item for a reason.
DB - you beat me to it with the stats! Al-Bert you memory is clearly fading and the rose tinted glasses are getting steamy! You know as well as I that the RAF has had more than its fair share of CFIT. Go further and compare the number of flying hours flown in the NS vs the RAF per year and the CFIT stats are relatively low in the NS. I knew several RAF CFIT stats personally. Your glorious career of under 200 hrs per year is all well and good, but i know people who have flown an average of over 600 hrs per year for over 30 years amassing over 20,000hrs in the NS and they have never ended up in the water either!
The reality is that we need to go further with automation and develop better SOPs and software modes and embrace it fully. We can and do still maintain hand flying skills, but we should not do that to the detriment of using the safety devices we are being provided with.