Police helicopter crashes onto Glasgow pub

[Art of flight]

Thanks Sid, sterling work.

The manufacturers have a lot of information to fit on to those VEMD graphics, they obviously had to decide what THEY thought was imortant weighed against statistical data of failure rates of components etc...Police pilots know that the VEMD representation of limited CAD information after failure is just that, limited. I've always thought the lack of fuel information and cautions was a big mistake which is why I alluded to it earlier in the thread and asked people to refrain from just jumping in without all the facts. Sid has guided you through the system and now revealed what we've known for years, when it's working it's simple, when bits start playing up it really does become a pain. Some will obviously say why continue to fly an aircraft with faults? My answer is that Police (and AA) flying in the UK is still really operating on a shoestring budget. It has grown up on a basis of one aircraft per unit (Met excepted) with no spare aircraft. You do everything in your power to get that aircraft to that task. There is a document called the MMEL which lists the acceptable faults that can be carried, it contains a surprising catalogue of bits that can be 'inoperative' for police operations, including much of the fuel indication system.

As I said earlier, I know of one aircraft (on the ground) that has failed to display any red warnings as the fuel emptied to zero. Combine that with a CAD faiure and what you've got left as a fuel warning system is the wind up clock.