Originally Posted by
obnoxio f*ckwit
The VSI is a small strip gauge on the outermost screens, so if you can see those screens you probably can see it, just not very well from back there!
He did say AS332L1!
Dakarman, your points are in general true although I think the large windows in the front row are unaffected by the door being open(?). The 2 nd and 3rd rows certainly are affected though.
Regarding the door jettison handle location, I agree that it should be nearer to door, however there would be only one thing worse than it being difficult to jettison following a ditching, and that would be inadvertent jettison in flight with subsequent probable contact with main or tail rotors.
However, the point is that its very difficult to design a helicopter with each person next to a window. Also, I question whether this would be the right way to proceed. Firstly, accidents involving difficulty getting out are very rare and have always arisen from a crash rather than a controlled ditching. It is therefore a sliding scale of crash severity causing some to become too incapacitated to escape, whilst others, either tougher or in a better location, manage to escape. Even with a large window next to each passenger its easy to envisage a crash severity such that some don't exit.
The last loss of life from a survivable crash was the N Cormorant accident in 1992, 21 years ago. In terms of ways of dying accidentally, its a tiny drop in the ocean (no pun intended!). That may sound harsh, but the idea that all life is precious and can't have a price put on it, is naive.
Compare with a fixed wing airliner. One exit per 30 or 40 passenger, many rows away. No pop out windows. Following a crash into water, its acceptable that people are going to drown through not being able to get out. The acceptability arises because such an event is very rare.
Therefore I would prefer that most of the efforts went into keeping the helicopter out of the water, since making a helicopter from which escape can be guaranteed regardless of the severity of the crash, is not possible.