North Sea Winter Operations
 

In Aberdeen we are now into the 6th day of severe disruption to flights to the rigs due to snow and icing conditions.

Looking at the departure information for Norwegian operators they seem to be running a fairly normal service out of Stavanger.

Do their fleet have extra winterisation kit which is not fitted in the UK, or are they operating under different go/no go criteria?

I cant wait for this thread to develop and hopefully we get to see a few posted pics of ops in these extreme conditions.

Is there such a thing as "extreme tea drinking", or maybe "exteme TAF checking"?

The weather in Stavanger has been nowhere near as bad as the UK, only a few iches over the past couple of weeks.

Bristow Stavanger fleet is all RIPS equiped S-92s execpt one L2. CHC Stavanger is L, L2 and 225.

We had one day last week where Tafs and Metars stated FZFG and FZDZ which caused some delays. Nothing major though. Delays here tend to occur in the evening when few alternates are available due to opening hours. Once or twice all alternates have been below minimums, which results in an early finish.

But it's nothing more then a regular winter I guess.

Looking forward to seeing some pictures if anyone has.

TiP:ok:

It´s definately been colder than normal on the Norwegian side of the North Sea this year, but apart from the occasional snowshower we have´nt experienced any heavy snowfall. Heavy snowshowers and sub-zero temperatures offshore though, which is unusual so far south this early in the season. Ekofisk reported -6C recently and I don´t think I´ve seen that before.
RIPS certainly make life a lot easier.

Below are some pictures from last winter. We were IMC in -8C and picked up ice during an approach in to Stavanger.
One of our technicians took these pictures with his iPhone after shutdown.

Enjoy.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/1.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...g/e4586b3e.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/2.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/3.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/4.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/5.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/6.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...sc/Icing/7.jpg

rotordude

What are RIPS?

Rotor Ice Protection System

I took this last year after an hour at 3000ft with ice building up slowly in IMC. To think the outside looked like those pics above.

Ice Probe on Puma L2.
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...n/7cce1bd4.jpg

Soon you may consider old ICE rider Mi 17 too :E

Its interesting to note the advantage the S92 with RIPS has had this year. It has certainly had an advantage in the bad weather, though this is offset by the reduced payload it has to offer against the 225 on normal days, those normal days being the vast majority.

However it would be a mistake to think that RIPS is the panacea that allows flight in any conditions. Although RIPS has become more reliable of late (originally it barely ever worked) one still has to consider what one would do if it failed in flight. It may have elements of a dual system but there are plenty of single failure modes that take the whole system out. The flight manual just says to vacate icing conditions, which is only any good if you can do that. Therefore even the S92 with RIPS needs some positive air temperature band to descend into. If you fly IMC over mountains, or IMC in icing conditions over the N Sea when the freezing level is on the surface, you run the risk of falling into the sea if the RIPS fails and the icing is bad. Fortunately we in BHL don't do that, not sure about the other operators?

Rather than choosing the S92 over the 225, oil companies could ask for the rotor de-icing system as fitted to our Norwegian 225s. Its just a matter of the cost and lost payload vs the number of days you gain an advantage from it when flying out of Aberdeen, which in a typical year can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

HC

You're comparing apples and bananas ;)
The right question is: what's the difference in payload between a S92 and a Norwegian 225?

--
(don't wanna start an other argument 92vs225 here, just interested in the figures. I know it's approx 500kg in favour of a "non-RIPS" 225)

GKaplan - my point was not really a 92 vs 225 debate rehash, just about the pros and cons of fitting rotor deicing to helicopters flying out of Aberdeen. As I said, for the oil companies its a matter of weighing up the additional cost and lost payload of the rotor deicing vs the days lost and disrupted due to inability to fly in icing conditions without positive temp band above the minimum operating altitude.

Currently the oil companies are of the view that its not worth the deicing for Aberdeen, whereas it is worth the deicing for Norwegian aircraft since the climate is just that bit colder on the other side of the N Sea.

Its a similar argument for snow clearing of runways and roads - is it worth investing/spending lots of money in equipment and staff to nearly eliminate disruption, or is it better to take a balanced view that we will have a modicum of equipment and staff at moderate cost and accept the disruption on a few days.

The only difference is this one can be tackled on a sliding scale, whereas its a black and white decision to either fit rotor deicing or not. But as I said, even with rotor deicing (costing around a million euros I think for a 225) there are still some days when it would be dangerous to fly, in case it failed. So you don't actually gain that much for your million.

HC

Tonight we even had an article on our local pravda, aka ABC TV 7.00PM News, showing the British PM talking in serious tones about a prolonged cold period and that they may have to think about changing investment strategies to cater for it. It was so remarkable after the prolonged warmist tirade from everywhere, that I figure the poms losing the last ashes test (against all odds) must also have something to do with it.

this article may interest some.

A Dalton Minimum Repeat is Shaping Up | Watts Up With That?

We may have lost the WACA battle Topend, but the Ashes War is still there to be won.:p

The people whinging about travel disruptions and demanding more investment in snow clearance are probably the same ones whinging about public spending cuts. Where do they think this money will come from?

with respect, I think the poms have a much better grip of their fudget, er budget than JOOOOLEEYAH and WAAAAAYNe.

those two found out today that their resources tax is against the constitution,
oh dear, :{
and conroy is jibbering, soon to go into broad band cyber melt down with the warmists.


of course the poms have something useful to sell, a decommissioned aircraft carrier.
That, with a heap of tins shacks/ humpeys built out of the houses in the below story and put on the flight deck, could be put to excellent use as a super boat-people carrier for the surging masses of welfare handouts hunters heading over here.

at least if someone cut it's engine off xmas Island in a storm it would stand a good chance of running right over it and solving lots of problems.

my apologies there mod, we're getting very off thread here, but here is a link to a story about part of our predicament, it even picks up on the seasprites story again after the story on housing, with some amusement.

I’m guessing not a single one | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog
but then again are seasprites good in cold weather??

Back to the subject of the thread, us chaps sitting out on the rigs hoping to get home before Xmas are wondering what's going on between the various operators out of Aberdeen.

During the worst of the snow, we noticed that Bond and CHC/Scotia managed to get a few choppers airborne while Bristow did not - and Aberdeen has mysteriously disappeared from the Bristow flight details website.....:*

Rumour has it (because rumour thrives out here) that Bristow doesn't want us to know what's happening during the delays :ugh:

coatmundi
The answer you seek is in this forum under Bristow contracts....

Coatimundi - I do appreciate your real and genuine need to get back home for Xmas, and whilst I have no great love of Bristow at the moment, I can say that the delays are not really to do with disgruntled pilots and any poor operating practices on the part of crews or the company.

Yes, there are pilots at risk of redundancy, and so we are down a few vital crew members right now. Apparently these aren't on any contracts and so are surplus to requirement - The benefit of having them when we need to play 'catch up' is pretty evident however.

The pilots that are in are not in any real dispute with the company and whilst nobody likes the way it is being done, there are no sudden flurry of sick notes or working to rule or anything like that. Crews who are in are genuinely trying to get the job done.

Over the last week, Bristow have flown when the others didn't, Bond have flown when we certainly thought they shouldn't have done, (there were also some flights conducted West of Shetland which did have better weather) and Scotia have flown when they have the S-92 which does have a marginally better icing clearance than the Super Puma types. Though it is hard to believe, the 3 companies do all talk to each other and state whether they are flying or grounding aircraft, but I accept there is no solid policy - We quite often don't know what others are doing until we look out the window and see someone taking off ! We should all basically be working to the same rules.

All we can do is take the rule book and assess whether it is safe and legal to fly - As many of these rules are open to some degree of 'interpretation' there is often disagreement even within our own crews as to whether flights can be achieved with the required safety margins in place. But I can assure you that Bristow crews are in and trying to get the job done as best we can and I think you'll find as the weather has improved, a lot of catching up has been done.

As to the Aberdeen Flight Departures disappearing off the web, I've no idea, but I've never seen it happen before ?!?!?

Good luck and hope you get off the rig soon

coatmundi

Not a case of the oil industry wanting safety to be second priority when stuck offshore per chance?

You might want to ask your company logistics department how much helicopter reserve capacity (including crews) they keep on contract for this eventuality. I suspect as much spare capacity as the LHR snow clarance department.

No, not the oil industry, just the poor low-grade roustie who wonders why the :mad: his helicopter has been cancelled when he's just seen another helicopter pass by overhead....:{

Speaking for myself, I'm actually on board for both Xmas and New Year, but I am directly in the firing line when it comes to stressed-out bods asking why their helicopter's not coming :*