Bpaggi
So how come many offshore operations are using single engine helicopters? The reality of the offshore world is a million miles from the notion that CAT A OPS prevail. If your assertion is correct then we have a big problem in the North Sea where PC2 operations of one sort or another prevail. As you say, if it's not CAT A then it must be Cat B. In which case your HV argument makes all AW139 ops non compliant with the RFM and therefore illegal? What appears to make them legal is their approval by the NAA.
We have been over this ground before but I'll explain it again as you seem not to understand. To comply with all the Cat A requirements the pilot is required to predict, prior to departure from his base, that he can safely land in accordance with the three elements of a Cat A operations. The mass should be in accordance with the appropriate WAT curve, no problem. A Cat A profile should be used, again, that should be achievable but cannot be guaranteed if adjacent vessels or wind direction make the required approach track unachievable. The third requirement is the show stopper for the pilot must ensure that when he gets to the offshore destination he must be able to comply with the obstacles avoidance element. It was established years ago that this would be impossible because included in that requirement is the need to quantify the effects of turbulence from structures and turbine exhausts and other detrimental aspects such as flares and mobile structures that can invade the FATO at a moments notice. That is the reason for abandoning attempts to make PC1 offshore mandatory.
Two out of three does not, I suggest, create a legally water-tight case for asserting that all Cat A offshore Ops are, or indeed should be, CAT A compliant. We may wish it were so but that does not make it so.
The offshore world at large is more like a 'jungle' than a 'civilised society' and no matter what we wish the reality is that we cannot even police EASA-land effectively so we can be sure that less efficient jurisdictions are nothing like Cat A compliant.
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Last edited by Geoffersincornwall; 14th Mar 2016 at 07:03.
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