Contrary to what Kawijet posed on 5 april on this thread the current re-breathers are NOT Cat. A.
I personnally already questioned very much if one would be able to apply the current re-breathers under water and clear the water out of the submerged mouthpiece/valve while pushing the valve to transfer to re-breathing. This would spill quite an amount of air from your lungs which would therefore not be available for re-breathing. (I know the unit itself also "adds" 4 liters air from a presurized bottle but overall i think you would lose too much air by clearing).
At least this has never been teached to me this way during training. During my last refresher, I did got some water in my re-breather and I can tell you that is quite frightening if you gulp water instead of air!
Not to mention that during my first training I did not gently squeezed the red knob but pulled the complete valve from the mouth piece.
Leaving me with an forced open mouth (by the mouth piece) in an ditching helitrainer!
That was due to a non secured hose connection on the trainer re-breather but I imagine one could pull it off under real stress as well.
Anyway the solution has been approved, announced and is now being rolled-out:
From Helihub 15th July:
EASA and UK CAA approve world?s first Category A Emergency Breathing System | Helihub - the Helicopter Industry Data Source
Note worthy is the sequence of roll out for the UK as announced by Survitec: Sumburgh, Norwich, Aberdeen.
Today the company I work for (we are 3rd party contractors) got an announcement from Dutch Shell (NAM):
New Cat A Emergency Breather System will be implented for flights from Den Helder 1st September 2014! So even earlier as in the UK!!
1,5 hour dry training sessions will be made available at Den Helder Airport from 28th of July only for the month August.
These training sessions are Free (course paid by Shell)
Hours presumably to be paid by contractors as it is outside check-in hours.
2 to 4 training sessions a day to match departing or arriving rotating crews.
Non rotational crew to be planned-in where possible.
From 1st September only training in the certified training centra,
From another source I already heared that they will NOT be able to meet the start of training for next Monday July 28th.
Questions on which I hope to get answers soon:
- Only Shell on Dutch side? (I haven't heared from my other clients/
O&G companies yet and the training session roster which I have seen
seems to match only Shell/NAM flights from Den Helder)
- When will training be available at training centres and what will be training costs?
Cleverly arranged during Dutch holiday month August.
How should I get al my guys through training?
We have little offshore work coming month, but the more for september!
In the announcement was a link to a very clear video from Survitec.
http://www.stepchangeinsafety.net/newsevents/news/news.cfm/newsid/162
I wonder how they will fill in the remaining 70 minutes of the training session.
SLB