[quote=902Jon;8078602]
although IIRC its deck height + 200, min 300' for Bristow./QUOTE
No, its Deck height +50', minimum 300'. MDA is deck ht + 200' if RADALT u/s
My point was, if the training departments' think that the only way to be safe on a night visual approach is to be hitting all the "gates", why do these visual gates not matter in the final stages of landing from a night ARA? I'm aware of the differences between landing onshore visually or from an Instrument approach. However, there will be at least 500m vis at the bottom of an ILS not just the deck lights of a small platform with inky blackness all around it.
Deck height +200' seems reasonable for a non-precision approach when that is what you have to work with from an onshore precision approach. It gives you the space/time to make a safe transition to the visual part of landing.
Its deck height + 200 (recommended) min 300 for a visual approach in BHL. Its deck height plus 50 min 300 for an ARA.
So in practice not a difference in min ht for a low deck, the difference is that for a high deck you retain a good site picture from visual, whereas from an ARA to minima the site picture is non-existant until the very last bit, just before nominal commital point.
However, ARAs to minima at night are fairly rare and as I mentioned before, this can be in their favour to some extent due to the "paying attention" factor.
I know I may be coming across as poo pooing various suggestions for perceived dangerous things, but as I have said before I don't think its these that will be the cause of the next accident. It will be something else that catches the crew in a low state of arousal because they didn't perceive it as being dangerous.
One of the most dangerous things about N Sea operations is the boring repetitiveness and predictability of it, and its the complacency this engenders that I think will be the cause of the next accident.
Bit like the Air France accident where they were bimbling along in yet another sleepy long haul cruise in the dead of night far above the ocean - consequently it took them a long time to grasp that they were in deep do-do.