Of course I am not saying to take no heed of the warnings. I would land cautiously but as weight came on the wheels it would be obvious that the gear was down. The main gear is held in that position by hydraulic lock which is established in the absence of pressure from the aircraft side. The gear operates like a motorbike swinging arm so if it was asymmetrically down (it wouldn't be!) that would be obvious, like a sloping ground landing.
Once there is a bit of weight on the wheels it becomes obvious that the gear is down, and the collective can be lowered fully. I would even say that if the gear was of a different type, keeping some weight on the gear is a bad idea because if one leg were to suddenly give way, dynamic rollover would be a likely consequence, which is worse than just falling over.
Dropping passengers off from a low hover / light on wheels is a bad idea because there is a good chance of an injury from the high step-down, a lot of downwash blowing stuff around (maybe the stuff that the pax thought they were holding on to adequately) not to mention the publicity which, whilst of no consequence in itself, does nothing to help the nervousness of offshore passengers.
As to seeking engineering assistance, that is only possible at bases where there are engineers. In the past we have had flybys for ATC to have a look, HLO's opinions etc and normally these are wrong or non-commital simply because no-one wants to risk saying everything is OK and then be held accountable if it isn't.
Just to add that in the entire history of the N Sea on the AS332L, L2 and EC225 (which all have the same type of landing gear) and in fact probably in the world, there has never been a case of gear not being down, following emergency activation, unless there were additional indications of hydraulic system problems (and not even sure if then). So when balancing the risk of people "leaping out of the helicopter" with doing a normal but cautious landing, the latter wins.
Many years ago when I was a co-pilot I had the nose leg of a SA330J collapse during a running landing (capt was PF I hasten to add!). The Capt recycled the gear in the hover (idiot) and lots of red fluid splooshed out everywhere and we lost AP hydraulics. So on that occasion, it was obvious that we didn't have a leg down.
Last edited by HeliComparator; 22nd Nov 2015 at 15:13.
Reason: Added a bit