What's more important Public or Flight Safety?
There's two things which have crossed my mind.
Firstly, outside the major population centres, the UK is actually reasonably sparsely populated. I'm not convinced airborne patrolling would contribute much in places like Wiltshire - the volume of crime in the first place is reasonably low, and the costs would be enormous. LA, Las Vegas and the like have dense population centres and crime levels which DO benefit from the constant patrolling. Plus costs are cheaper
Second - if a commercial operator has to maintain and operate two types, the costs go up. Same for the military - an ab-initio type and an advanced type (a la Tucano and Hawk for the RAF FJ types) doesn't really have the economic upper hand over a single type.
Firstly, outside the major population centres, the UK is actually reasonably sparsely populated. I'm not convinced airborne patrolling would contribute much in places like Wiltshire - the volume of crime in the first place is reasonably low, and the costs would be enormous. LA, Las Vegas and the like have dense population centres and crime levels which DO benefit from the constant patrolling. Plus costs are cheaper
Second - if a commercial operator has to maintain and operate two types, the costs go up. Same for the military - an ab-initio type and an advanced type (a la Tucano and Hawk for the RAF FJ types) doesn't really have the economic upper hand over a single type.
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NR Fairy,
You are right, of course, about the disparity in activity and aircraft provision between metropolitan and county(rural) police forces, and this applies to the UK too. There are many/much more people, police and crime in most major city areas than in a rural area, and yet most forces get one helicopter, no matter what their size. We have a pretty silly system of sharing out helicopter resources in the UK - generally the ruralish forces get a much better deal than the built-up area forces (given the activity levels). [There are of course exceptions, like Norfolk but that seems to be a special one-off case].
Some of the rural forces had singles, but pretty early on the CAA browbeat them in to getting twins. It is in the nature of the beast that policemen and police forces do not naturally like to resist the pressure of legal regulators.
It is but one example of the illogical way that taxpayer's money is spent.
You are right, of course, about the disparity in activity and aircraft provision between metropolitan and county(rural) police forces, and this applies to the UK too. There are many/much more people, police and crime in most major city areas than in a rural area, and yet most forces get one helicopter, no matter what their size. We have a pretty silly system of sharing out helicopter resources in the UK - generally the ruralish forces get a much better deal than the built-up area forces (given the activity levels). [There are of course exceptions, like Norfolk but that seems to be a special one-off case].
Some of the rural forces had singles, but pretty early on the CAA browbeat them in to getting twins. It is in the nature of the beast that policemen and police forces do not naturally like to resist the pressure of legal regulators.
It is but one example of the illogical way that taxpayer's money is spent.
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Charlie..............Statistics are ok if they truly reflect the correct information. Its ok stating that there were X amounts of accidents in an R22 compared with Y amounts of accidents in a B206. What that does not reflect is the amount of hours that each type have flown or, for that matter, how many of each type were flying world wide during the time the stats were compiled.
I would hazard a guess that there were more B206 flying than R22's??????
I would hazard a guess that there were more B206 flying than R22's??????
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The relative merits of piston and turbine singles is an interesting one, but you need to look at a number of factors to get a meaningful result.
I am a bit dubious about the suggestion that certified piston engine helicopters use "modern" engines and so benefit from such new technology - Have you looked at a Lycoming or Continental engine and compared it with what is slotted into a modern car? These are the only certified engines that can be used in certified helicopters and pre-date the dinosaurs. I wish it were possible for piston engine helicopters to be built with modern engines but the certification process (supposedly there to keep us safe) more or less prevents improvement and the economics don't stack up for new designs. There is little prospect of any new certified piston engine, and if there is, it will be built because of planks, not helicopters. The Robinson philosophy to use of engines is important though. Running the engine at lower rpm reduces stress significantly. As an engineer, it seems to me to be a clever way of probably improving engine reliability (albeit at the cost of lower power of course). In a discussion about piston v turbine the Robinson is important because numerically the Robinson fleet is pretty much the piston fleet.
It is, of course, true that the total number of accidents or failures is meaningless, unless you have the population of units (i.e. helicopters/engines) and the usage (i.e. flying hours) but you must also know what sort of usage. Since (excluding the military world where someone else pays the bill) all basic training is done in pistons, and most low hours pilots fly pistons, it would be expected that pistons will be exposed differently to turbines.
It may well depend upon where in the world you are, but in the UK I would guess there is more flying hours of PISTON single engine helicopters than TURBINE. This is because of two constraints on singles:
1. you cannot get insurance to fly a turbine until you have significant flying experience; and
2. In the UK less and less pax carrying can be done by singles because of CAA/JAA rules and there is precious little commercial flying in the UK that does not involve pax.
I am a bit dubious about the suggestion that certified piston engine helicopters use "modern" engines and so benefit from such new technology - Have you looked at a Lycoming or Continental engine and compared it with what is slotted into a modern car? These are the only certified engines that can be used in certified helicopters and pre-date the dinosaurs. I wish it were possible for piston engine helicopters to be built with modern engines but the certification process (supposedly there to keep us safe) more or less prevents improvement and the economics don't stack up for new designs. There is little prospect of any new certified piston engine, and if there is, it will be built because of planks, not helicopters. The Robinson philosophy to use of engines is important though. Running the engine at lower rpm reduces stress significantly. As an engineer, it seems to me to be a clever way of probably improving engine reliability (albeit at the cost of lower power of course). In a discussion about piston v turbine the Robinson is important because numerically the Robinson fleet is pretty much the piston fleet.
It is, of course, true that the total number of accidents or failures is meaningless, unless you have the population of units (i.e. helicopters/engines) and the usage (i.e. flying hours) but you must also know what sort of usage. Since (excluding the military world where someone else pays the bill) all basic training is done in pistons, and most low hours pilots fly pistons, it would be expected that pistons will be exposed differently to turbines.
It may well depend upon where in the world you are, but in the UK I would guess there is more flying hours of PISTON single engine helicopters than TURBINE. This is because of two constraints on singles:
1. you cannot get insurance to fly a turbine until you have significant flying experience; and
2. In the UK less and less pax carrying can be done by singles because of CAA/JAA rules and there is precious little commercial flying in the UK that does not involve pax.
Last edited by Helinut; 8th Mar 2004 at 06:36.
