Bob,
Apologies, in my post above I stated that the minima for VFR in class G were;
'for helicopters flying at a speed which, having regard to visibility, is reasonable: clear of cloud and with the surface in sight.'
I was wrong. It was night which I had overlooked. I should have said the VFR minima were;
'for helicopters flying at a speed which, having regard to visibility, is reasonable: clear of cloud and with the surface in sight in a flight visibility of 3 km'.
The 150m RVR is a red herring as Shy suggests, as this is an aerodrome minima.
Chopjock,
No that's not my point. I am suggesting, that to be legal, one would need to comply with VFR and remain VMC until through Vmini.
You can't just climb vertically and loose sight of the surface. The Vmini limitation simply doesn't allow it. And, It doesn't matter how you aim to achieve the climb, coupled or not, the law does not permit it.
I am mindful that; VMC are meteorological conditions equal to or better than those required to operate under VFR and IMC are conditions worse than those required for VFR.
So, in a nutshell, you can't be IMC whilst under VFR, clearly! (if you can't see the surface, or have less than 3k flight vis at night, you are not complying with VFR) Furthermore, you can't be IMC whilst below Vmini. It doesn't work on two levels.
Um... Lifting,
The fact that you can couple the AW139 in various modes below Vmini has nothing to do with the fact that you can't go IMC/IFR below 50KIAS/Vmini.