SAR: Search & Rescue Ops
 

BP Amoco has announced it is looking at basing 4 Super Puma helicopters offshore as SAR cover to replace standby boats. 2 Pumas will also be based onshore. Where are they going to get the approx 24 crews from to give 24hr 365 a day cover? Is the Puma the right helio? Is there a 4 axis coupled auto hover/letdown version of the Puma. The Puma is French therefore rotors go the wrong way round hence winch is on the wrong side and exacerbates the right wing low hover when loaded. I would be surprised if the RAF has more than 26 operational SAR crews at the moment so the problem is huge. The average N Sea pilot with no SAR or Pinger service would find it a difficult transition to night hovering in still wind on a black night. So experienced crews should be able to hold out for big pay packets if this goes ahead £75,000+ plus offshore allowance of at least £100 per night etc.

Dream on.
Your estimate of numbers might be right, but the average north sea pilot spends plenty of time landing on small support vessels during wintery ****ty nights. They will still be the first choice.

You miss the point. Hovering with a visual reference is relatively easy be it day or night. Hovering at night in still wind with the rotor downwash "appearing " to give the impression that you are moving back and left because it is blowing away from you can be very disorienting. Until you have done it in foggy conditions with no normal hover references and the doppler having unlocked because it cannot resolve all the different vectors thrown up by the downwash you haven't lived!! This is what the oil companies will expect you to do if they get rid of the standby boats.

AllyPally

I think you have missed the point.

Where do youi think the companies will select their crews from? Anyone who is willing to take the job on is the answer. I agree there is not enough ex mil people around but the hovering is a bit of a easy thing to pick up, otherwise how would crab pilots be able to cope. As for the wages then you are on something if you think they will pay any more than the going rates at the moment for offshore pilots.

Rather strange to surmise that this mission would be beyond the scope of the existing commercial operators, who have performed this function for DECADES with a variety of types, both onshore and offshore based.

These missions are flown by a mixture of ex-military and civilian pilots, by training for the particular mission, with the equipment to be utilised. SAR missions are performed worldwide, by a variety of commercial and military operators and are simply not the domain of any particular operating entity.

The number of military crews is not the issue, as the contract will be placed with a commercial operator, with the ability to provide trained crews, role-equipped aircraft and the desired availability.

The average North Sea pilot has an extensive background in a multitude of operating environments and missions. With the number of current and past SAR operations, former military aircrew and continuing training, commercial operators are able to meet any contractural requirement. Recent lay-offs in the industry provide for an (unfortunately) extensive pool of extremely competent and skilled pilots waiting in the wings. This is the bread and butter of the commercial helicopter business, meeting contractural requirements with innovation and excellence. If someone has the need and the money to pay for the requirement, commercial operators will provide the service.

If the contract requirement specifies the Super Puma, the aircraft is available from the factory configured for automated SAR operations, a number of these aircraft are already performing this task. This will additionally ensure competitive bidding, as no single operator will be able to dominate the market.

Do not confuse the Super Puma (AS332L) with the Puma (AS330J), the two types are totally different in virtually every aspect of performance and capability. The Super Puma offers significant performance increases over the 330J, or the S61N, for SAR operations, particularly for diversionary single engine operations from an offshore base of operations.

This would be a great opportunity to expand operations for the commercial operators, but would essentially be an expansion of their existing operations. Consequently, there would probably be no shortage of crews ready to work a nice long term 14/14 schedule, with the ability to live where they wish.

Getting pilots for this contract won't be the problem, nor will getting the aircraft. The biggest problem is where the suitably qualified winch operators and winchmen will come from!

There are few in the civilian world who are not already employed in SAR or other crewmen duties. I suspect that those in the military who would like to go for the job would not be released quickly enough to fill the posts.

Does this then mean that whoever wins the contract must train their own guys from scratch? What company has a training machine in place to do that? I suspect not even Bristow who operate four SAR units, let alone Scotia who employ few crewmen anyway.

The RAF operates a SAR Training Unit at Valley and have had contracts to train civilians in the past, so perhaps that is the way to go. However, even that will take time. There will have to be a long lead-in time built in to whoever wins this contract to ensure that the training can be done (plus the medical training that will be required as the contract also requires a paramedic - which can be done by suitably qualified rearcrew)

As an aside to the comment about "crab" pilots and night hovering, this person obviously has not seen an RAF rescue Sea King which has the same if not better auto-hover capability (depending whether it be a Mk 3 or a Mk 3A) than the Navy aircraft. They are as good as their Nay counterparts! At least the "crabs" have a professional SAR school unlike the "wafu's" who have none and have even cut back their SAR commitments!

I think Ally Pally may have missed the point! How often do we get still nights on the north sea?! They tend to happen more often in the summer and funnily enough it stays lighter for longer then!
p.s. Even with the technology available for the Wessex 3, we din't have too many problems establishing a doppler hover in light airs, the downwash actually came in handy to give the doppler something to look at!

Glad to see the crab comment got a bite.

Couple of questions on this subject...

First of all will the contract be an open tender or an extension of BHL's SAR operations (different agency I know, but could be connected?). Secondly does anyone have an idea about how much flying may be undertaken outside the normal operating hours of Aberdeen ATC - both airport and offshore tasks? And when offshore, to what extent would air traffic services be required?

There could be some interesting times ahead for us when this service starts.

Where has Allypally been for the last decade or so ? All this claptrap about night hovering, nil wind, no references, fog etc - does he really think anyone does that sort thing these days !! Since the early eighties the contract Coastguard S61N's have been equipped with a rather cute SAR package, with - yes you guessed it - a four axis fully coupled all singing and hovering autopilot, and the computer does not care whether it's day or night. Anyone trying a manual hover at night over the ogin in poor conditions, seriously needs treatment ! :rolleyes:
The technology and the expertise is available to make this proposition work, my only doubt is where the Winchops/men are coming from ? as Aerospit has already noted.
Oh ! by the way, I was in a foggy, night, maritime hover when I wrote this - FULLY COUPLED of course.

Interesting news indeed, that poses a few quandries for those awarding contracts.

Who flies the commercial routes for BP/Amoco nowadays? Bond/Scotia.

Who has a less than enviable track record in Ireland with SAR? Bond/Scotia (advertising for winch ops by the way)

Who has a fine and long standing reputation with civil SAR? BHL.

Who (possibly!) has a surplus of AS332s and could be in a position to rapidly take on this contract? BHL.

I wouldn't like to bet on it but.....

To add to the above debate on heroic seat of the pants, "when I was a Wessex pinger" type remarks; I think that nice Mr Newmark, in hand with Monsieur SFIM, may assist in some capacity to prevent those inexperienced North Sea civvie types from hitting the wet stuff.

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Another day in paradise

[This message has been edited by 212man (edited 29 May 2000).]

Is that correct?replacing standby boats.
Does anyone remember the Piper Alpha.The standby boats and crew rescued a lot of men from an area that no helicopter could have got near.
Adding additional safety by having improved rapid response SAR capabilities would probably reduce insurance cost's.
I don't think I would want to be offshore without those fishermen in the boats.Try getting a heli started in some of those winds,sixty mile an hour fog.

Is that correct?replacing standby boats.
Does anyone remember the Piper Alpha.The standby boats and crew rescued a lot of men from an area that no helicopter could have got near.
Adding additional safety by having improved rapid response SAR capabilities would probably reduce insurance cost's.
I don't think I would want to be offshore without those fishermen in the boats.Try getting a heli started in some of those winds,sixty mile an hour fog.
I did work on the Piper alpha once,Hard to forget,I hope it never happens again.The standby boats saved life's.

Dumb question, forgive me for asking (totally new here)...are they lookin' for pilots in that neck of the woods?

I was flying JetRangers, then somehow wound up flying for a commuter airline. Oh, I miss rotary. FAA by the way, just American trash, so maybe the Euro set wouldn't hire me.

Just thought I'd offer the query and see if there's any wisdom out there on it.

Many thanks.

Should not be a problem. Most of the rescue boats are manned by Spanish or Philappinos(how do you spell that?), so what's the problem of a bit of transfer of labour.
I guess that's why the unions are being a bit mute at this point on what would be a huge jobs issue on the boats in the UK.
Funny that, they've just realised that nearly everyone on a rescue boat is from abroad.
;)

From the content of this thread, it appears that ther may be a perceived problem recruiting adequate winch crews. The obvious solution would be to find some good location and set up a training school to produce the personnel required.

Whilst perusing elsewhere on PPRuNe, I stumbled on the perfect location, Manston, Kent. Good location, excellent facilities and training areas abound, (including the all important glassy water, foggy conditions) and it will soon be a major airport again.

The next problem is finding a suitable helicopter to perform the SAR training role, needs to be large enough to hold the winch crew and also large enough to provide meaningful aircrew training for the mission. It would also be ideal if the aircraft had none of those fancy gadgets, so a little training is given in elementary skills in this operating environment. Of course, finally it needs to be cost effective.

I don't know if there might be any old WS55 Whirlwinds knocking around, but that would be the perfect aircraft for this role.

Brilliant solution, Whirlwind's at Manston, it's a wonder no-one ever thought of it before! :)

Perhaps those Phillipino's might be interested in the job?

I sense an Empire in creation!!!!! ;)

No, Whirlwinds (love 'em) a bit old-hat. How about Bell 412, which is, by coincidence, an ideal machine for the Coastguard to operate from this location for Channel ops? On the other hand, why not send your baby crewmen to Valley and get them trained by SARTU/DHFS. The RAF and the DHFS Contractor might well be grateful for the business, though they might need to buy some more machines.

Wish I worked for BHT!

This may be closer to reality than we all think. BP Amoco have been working on this for 18 months. All that is left to do is sell the idea to the work force. With standby boats costing £5k a day there are some big savings to be made. As for crews, some additional training will be needed but Valley have done that in the past - for a fee! nice little earner for the military. The question is, how many helio's and therefore how many crews working what kind of rota offshore? Lots of duty time but not much flying. It will be interesting to see what excemptions the CAA will give to FTL! ;)

I find the whole thing rather amusing. It seems fairly obvious that many of you have little or no knowledge of the way the off shore industry works.

Cost is the overriding factor, not quality of service. Some accountant in BP is on a big bonus to come up with more ways of saving money. They award the contract to the lowest bidder and the operators fall over themselves to do it for next to nothing. When the contract is awarded the Oil Company then gives the contractor a hard time if things don't go too well. The crewing is sorted out as you go along, generally using the least experienced co-pilots available and scraping around for Captains. The training will be minimal to save cost, and yes the CAA will do anything that anyone asks and then criticizes the crew paper work.

The pilots get as little in pay and allowances as the operator can get away with until they get fed up and leave and then we just draft someone else in. Meanwhile the clever accountant goes off to spend the money the crews should have had. Sounds cynical I know but its damn close to the truth.

SARcastic seems to be dangerously unaware of the dangers of night hovering. Autohover and height hold are very good but not infallible. A good friend of mine was nearly drowned in a FULLY COUPLED fully serviceable Coastguard S61N which ditched, I believe, due to loss of spatial awareness at night. He was washed into the tail and only managed to get out when the rear escape door was opened from the outside. AllyPally is right, you have to have the skill to fly the aircraft when the automatics fail/throw a wobbly. Writing notes in the Autohover is not a good idea unless you are totally unaware of what can go wrong.

And pigs can fly. What if it's only an excercise to bring the rates for standby vessels down; 10.000 a day I'm led to believe.
Figure a Tiger strapped to a northsea deck for 365 days a year; left on it's own in an Aberdeen hangar for a weekend it doesn't start on a monday; so forget about (s) crewing; as soon as the rates go down the accountants will shelve the ambitious project.

Houdini is quite correct, it's turned in to bloody department accountants saving money in their little empires.
As far as all this winging going on about hovering over the sea at night, I wouldn't particularly want to do it if I was over there, but if they paid me enough, I do have a license to do it. Show me the money oil companies!
Yet again it comes down to our steely management teams to get a good rate for this offshore contract, and stop the freebies that the oil companies have had in the last few years!
L

Slightly off topic I know, but I think the person whose friend was nearly drowned in the BHL S-61N has gots his facts slightly wrong. I believe that the reason that the aircraft ditched was because the pilot flying did not trust the wonderful 4-axis autopilot and was trying to hover on calm water at night in hazy conditions. Perhaps if that pilot had used the kit, the aircraft would not have ditched.

It's funny, but the RAF Sea King that picked up the crew used its' auto-hover without any problems and rescued the S-61 crew.

The items about night over water hovering are all correct, however, even the newest of pilots in RAF SAR has to be able to maintain a reasonable manual instrument hover at night. This skill is practiced frequently and is an aspect of a pilot's annual check.

As the Captain of the RAF Seaking which rescued the Stornaway Bristow crew I can perhaps give the true facts about the rescue!
On reaching the incident the ditched crew were in a multi-seat dinghy. The wind was offshore and very variable in direction due to the hills. The sea state was also confused. We descended into an autohover close to the dinghy and briefed for a highline auto hover-trim recovery of the 4 man crew. The winch operator immediately reported problems with the auto trim (which feeds an error signal to the doppler to move the a/c) and I took back control. The doppler kept unlocking due to the confusing sea state which gave me problems in maintaining an accurate hover. I therefore disengaged the auto hover and flew a manual hover, successfully recovering the crew. We then flew them to Stornaway where a very relieved ex-RAF winchman told his story of being trapped in the tail. He was operating the FLIR at the time of the inadvertant ditching. The coupled system in the Seaking was good most of the time but it was/is a simplex system. All RAF SAR captains had to demonstrate they could night hover in total manual control every year and would quite often have to use that skill on real SAROPS. The skill of manual night hovering will have to be taught and practised if the BP SAR helicopters are to have the ability to react in all weathers. By the way the whiskey that Bristows sent was very enjoyable!!

The latest 'hot-poop' is that the aircraft will not be hangared! Even the most dedicated Frenchman will admit that Eurocopter's finest will not be 'S' for more than 24 hours in that situation.

Having just re-read 212man's submission, the latest news is that it sounds BHL may have more spare airframes than we think, and if LOGIC is adopted, both companies may have the spare capacity.(and buildings as well!!)

The 332L is stronger than you think. I was offshore in the 40s for about 5 months with one and while we had some problems with blade sail it held up well. You have to have one greenie and one A+C engineer with you but as it was your a/c it was easier to keep on top of snags as they arose. The decks chosen for the SAR helio will have to be carefully selected to give some measure of shelter . I.e 40s OK especially from a SW wind Montrose not so good as the helideck sits right on top of the rig with no shelter. The BP idea is very good so long as the right decks are chosen and the a/c and crews are prepared and trained properly for the task.

Aerospit quite correct, the pilot involved didn’t use his autopilot. With no intention to denigrate the Captain involved, he had an apparently impeccable background; Ex - RAF, QHI and CFS Instructor!. True enough, both the Sea King & S-61N autopilots have limitations. But they will get you close enough to the hover to allow full, partial or manual hover ability once established. Hundreds of aircraft have been involved in CFIT, by some of the best aircrew since Icarus. Spatial disorientation, lack of situational awareness, and good old poor airmanship on a dark night or in poor weather can and still does catch out the best. There by good fortune go a few of you probably reading this. After all we are only ‘Human’. Back to the beginning of the thread: I think you will find the Commercial Operators with Ex-Mil/Civilian trained crews will manage without the ‘light blue’ coming to the rescue. One thing for sure, it won’t be on ‘Dream Team’ wages unfortunately.

Its a long time since I did the Rig thing, but where are they going to park all these SAR machines? I dont recall decks capable of handling 2 Puma sized a/c or is my memory at fault?

[This message has been edited by Pinger (edited 11 June 2000).]

EFATO, news is the rigs concerned are 1 Thistle, deck on the SW corner, 2 Harding (almost the same), 3 North Everest, (on the West side) and 4 the West Sole, (can't comment, never been there), so far a 75% unsuccess rate on your comments rergarding the 40s!!

Whilst not wishing to join in a military/civilian bun fight, I'd like to point out a few glaring omissions in a few of the previous replies with regard to the Senior Service.
"At least the "crabs" have a professional SAR school unlike the "wafu's" who have none and have even cut back their SAR commitments!"
Whilst it is true that the RN have no dedicated SAR School, this does not mean crews are not fully trained before taking up a SAR appointment. This is done on the Squadron by the QHI/QAI. The reason this is possible is because, unlike a significant number of RAF crews who are ab initio students, all RN SAR crews have completed a minimum of two and a half years, and normally far longer than that, on an ASW Squadron before being selected for SAR duties. As ASW warriors they spend an inordinate amount of time as their primary role, you guessed it, sitting in a hover in all weathers day and night.
To return to the civ/mil thread, I would not for one moment suggest that it is beyond the capabilities of any competent crew, civil or military, to carry out maritime SAR with the correct equipment and suiteable training. However I would caution against assuming that just because you have x thousand rotary hours and equipment is available which 'should' enable the a/c to establish a coupled hover in all weathers makes you an instant expert. I have known too many friends who are no longer with us who can bear testament to the extremely unforgiving environment within which maritime SAR is conducted.
Safe Flying.

ABZ P&J.
MPs change copter stance
by Jeremy Cresswell and David Perry

Aberdeen MPs did an about-turn last night on BP Amoco's proposals for a helicopter-based North Sea safety regime.

Their change in stance followed a private briefing from senior company executives in the Commons and raises a huge questionmark over the future of a large part of the North-east's safety vessel fleet and 6,000 on and offshore jobs.

The city's three Labour MPs were told that besides platform-based helicopters, the proposed package would include:

New wrist-watch style personal locators with a 15-mile range, vastly improving the chance of speedy location of casualties in the water.

More comfortable new technology immersion clothing worn as underwear, increasing survival time dramatically.

Fast surface safety boats launchable from platforms.

Aberdeen Central MP Frank Doran said afterwards it had been an extraordinarily good meeting at which serious concerns raised with them by the Emergency Response Rescue Vessel Association (ERRVA) were discussed in detail.

He said the BP Amoco concept was at an early stage, with implementation two to three years away depending on further research, consultations and the approval of the Health and Safety Executive.

Mr Doran said workers off-platform often failed to wear full survival suits because they were so bulky as to make normal work difficult, requiring those who did fall overboard to be reached within four minutes. New technology, which is expected on the market in August, would enable them to survive longer and be found faster, he said.

Mr Doran said: "The price is the potential removal of standby vessels in the North Sea with serious implications for jobs and vessel owners, but there is the possibility of significantly increasing safety offshore, and that has to be the priority."

Aberdeen South MP Anne Begg said MPs had been able to hear the other side of the story for the first time and believe that if what BP Amoco proposed came to fruition and everything worked as planned, it would hopefully lead to increased safety.

She said safety experts believed improvements on platforms made another Piper Alpha disaster an unreasonable possibility and that in any event, all platforms now had refuges from which rescues would more easily be performed by helicopters than by boats.

Miss Begg said: "You cannot hold back advances in safety just to protect jobs. But it is our responsibility to make sure everyone affected is able to redeploy – perhaps to manning platform-launched boats – or be retrained for other jobs."

Aberdeen North MP Malcolm Savidge called for the new equipment to be also adopted by fishermen. "The new technology clothing and locators could lead to huge improvements in safety if they were adopted by the fishing fleet."

North Sea trade unions broadly welcomed BP's initiative, which came to light at the end of last month. Since then, however, scepticism has set in, largely because of the concerns raised by ERRVA.

Last weekend, the organisation's chairman, Jeremy Daniel, said there were certain situations where a helicopter simply could not substitute for a ship. He said they could not:

Rescue survivors from beneath an offshore installation.

Operate in the vicinity of a gas cloud.

Easily provide back-up rescue capability if one is unavailable for whatever reason.

He said: "If these plans are adopted, the rescue cover offered will be significantly less than that currently
available."

Trade union OILC on Saturday called for a Scottish Parliamentary inquiry into the BP proposal, even though its leader Jake Molloy is, in principle, in favour of helicopter-based rescue systems. Other unions
are reserving final judgment pending further consultation.

Oh well, you probably can put this plan to bed and continue with the preparations to join an airline!

ABZ P&J 14 July 2000

MPs call a halt on oilrig safety switch

MPs told oil giant BP Amoco last night to halt plans to replace stand-by boats with helicopters, pending industry-wide talks on North Sea safety.

The united front was established at a meeting at Westminster of MPs in favour of considering the proposals, those backing safety boats, boat operators and the main offshore unions.

After the near two-hour meeting, Inter-Union Offshore Oil Committee (IUOOC) secretary Rab Wilson said: "There were forcible arguments on the safety issue." It had been a very positive meeting.

Mr Wilson denied the unions were totally opposed to the use of helicopters, claiming there could be instances where they were better and others where boats were the answer.

He said: "One positive move would be for the company to cease their helicopter rescue plans so we can have an industry-wide discussion about safety offshore."

Aberdeen North Labour MP Frank Doran, who convened the meeting, said : "There was unanimity that BP Amoco's proposals will affect the whole of the North Sea oil and gas industry.

"It is not appropriate for such an important proposed development in offshore safety to be handled by one company alone. The whole process should be opened up and be transparent."

He said there was agreement at the meeting to approach ministers and the Health and Safety Executive, adding: "The aim is for BP Amoco to open up this whole process and make the research they are doing available."

Western Isles Labour MP Calum Macdonald, who broke ranks earlier to demand the retention of safety vessels, confirmed the agreement for an industry-wide approach. He said: "If BP's proposals go forward it will affect other oil companies as well. We are writing to encourage them to engage in these discussions and will ask the Government to ask the company to do so."

Aberdeen South Labour MP Anne Begg said: "I have a number of constituents working offshore. My first concern is not just upholding the existing safety regime, but improving on it.

"That may mean a mix of helicopters and safety boats – the answer may not lie with just one or the other."

Falkirk East Labour MP Michael Connarty said: "There was concern on my part that BP have not thought this through."

David Hekelaar, managing director of Viking Stand-by, with 28 boats and 600 employees, said: "I am pleased that the MPs and the IUOOC representatives have taken the view that this is an industry-wide problem and not just a BP Amoco issue.

"I am hopeful that an acceptable solution will be found where the best method of providing offshore safety is established."

Jeremy Daniel, chairman of the Emergency Rescue Vessels Association, said he was "delighted at the unanimity of view that there has been – that before we can start building the right safety structure we have to call a halt to the plans which BP Amoco are making on their own".

BP Amoco's proposals involve replacing 17 stand-by vessels with four helicopters offshore and two onshore, improved survival underwear and wrist-watch size personal radio locators and platform-launched fast rescue boats.

The fear was other companies would follow, putting the future of 115 boats and 6,000 staff at risk.

Nice to know that some of you flyer types out there *DO* get their facts straight sometimes! (I was looking at the CFIT SAR S61)

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400 Hertz but DC is easy

[This message has been edited by 400 Hertz (edited 14 July 2000).]

Although MPs have said this the offshore workforce is generally in favour of offshore based SAR helios as the standby boats only cover the immediate rig area and provide no viable cover should a passenger helio ditch more than 15nms from their rig. Also in sea states above 30kts and at night the SAR helio is more effective than a boat. The only advantage a boat perhaps has is to inform an OIM (rig manager) of fire damage to his rig should the unthinkable happen and a rig catch fire and everybody is confined to the "safe refuge". I would like to see the deployment of the SAR helios plus a "super" boat responsible for a cluster of rigs. (remember the ESV Iolair!!)

I can't wait to get experience to join in your conversation.I think 20 years will be ok
Keep talking it's very interesting.

N.Sea SAR trials
 

BP is trialling SAR helo's for the N.Sea to replace some RSVs. I thought the idea had been kicked into touch at parliamentry level.

Anybody know anything new?

cyclic, nothing new but if it all goes ahead where are the specialist crews coming from?

The SAR helicopter is the safest way to pick people out of the water. The standby boat my give the impression of being there on hand all the time but it is a nonsense to think you could be safely picked out of the water at night in a 30+kt wind and associated sea state by a safety boat. Bring on the SAR helicopters ASAP. As far as crews goes there are a few of us waiting the call to do the professional job that is needed to improve safety for the boys offshore.