We took 3 seats out of our helicopters and convinced the regulator that was enough reason to escape the 10 passenger seat rule...obviously makes life a lot easier for all sorts of reasons.
In 3,800 hours S76 offshore I never checked the FDR once, nobody ever did. We were never told we had to, or how to, or that an FDR was even fitted. I don't even recall a CVR being fitted in the 76 A or C, but I do know we had them in the C+ and C++ because there was a black box in the cockpit with an erase button and annoying green lights that blinked when you spoke.
Ups,
Very interesting! Didn’t you and your regulator ever realize that the ten or more seats rule is defined from the helicopter type certificate, not on the seats what you kicked out?
Yes, you are right that there are some black boxes in the helicopter and also could be a black box in the cockpit. Don’t press any button if you don’t know what the button is.
Did you had any conversion training, recurrent training, OPC’s, LC’, any annual recurrent system training for S76 series helicopter? Is it a long time since all this happen?