Satsuma - My apologies if I'm crossing a line, it's not my intention, I'm just trying to explain the context of why anybody would ever want to ask my humble opinion on this subject on national radio.

Hehe you are a card. So when comparing like for like doesn't work in your favour you campare like with just about anything else in the world that does, good one. :ok: I can just imagine the scorne that you and many others would rightly poor on the operator who designed a UK SAR aircraft built to O&G rules and regs. I'm still chuckling now at picturing row upon row of O&G compliant seating for fair paying passengers, just like in the back of a sea king of course :ok:

Jerry, I hope that in your book and in your media interviews, you highlight the fact that the SAR heroes are the rear-crew, not the pilots - we get to sit in a comfy and (generally) dry cockpit while they get smashed into decks, dunked in freezing water and left on dark mountainsides and have to deal with all manner of horrific injuries to the casualty.

How many years did you do in SAR?

Snakepit

What are you babbling about? The basic function of an emergency exit is that it permits an adult human to escape without hindrance, whatever the aircraft's role. How do those seats meet that requirement?

Come on Satsuma, you really do seem to be just picking for the sake of picking. How exactly do you plan to fill an aircraft with crashworthy seats, carry the maximum number of people physically possible, have every seat next to a full-size emergency exit, etc,etc.
The seats in that SAR fit are NOT blocking Emergency Exits - they are blocking escape windows, which is a different thing.

Since all seating configurations have to be approved by EASA I think it is safe to assume that the seating config in the S92 fully complies with all safety regs.

Far South,

Can you or one of your colleagues post some photos of the inside of one of the soon to be operational aircraft at Humberside or Inverness then please, showing ALL the seats required to satisfy the contract and how no emergency exits are obstructed. While you're at it, take a picture of the strange stretcher stowage contraption so we can all have a laugh.

Try making the distinction between an escape window and an emergency exit to the gentleman trying to get out of it before he drowns and see how far you get.

Please remember, I wasn't the one who made extravagant claims about enhanced safety so I'm not just being picky for the sake of it, merely redressing the balance.

Satsuma - all the side facing seats have single pull straps (yellow in the picture) that allows the seat to be totally removed within a second or so.

Brilliant solution! Perhaps runs 7 & 8 in the HUET should have cabin occupants' exits impeded by a seat which they have to remove - while everyone else does the same with their seats. What could possibly go wrong? Run 8 can have a representative weight dummy strapped into the seat. Good luck writing that risk assessment.

No need for the photos Far South. You can see the seats in front of an emergency exit on the TV news footage on page 76 (post 1515).

EASA have signed this off, right? Who was doing the certification that day? Homer Simpson?

Does EASA have anything to do with SAR aircraft Satsuma?

Cheers

TeeS

Judging by the Airworthiness Directives they have released in the past relating to the SAR S92 and 139, I would say yes.

Oh Satsuma. If this is troubling you so very much and clearly causing you such incredible levels of stress and hysteria then why don't you simply travel to Humberside, introduce yourself (perhaps keep the Satsuma bit secret) and go see for yourself? You can ask questions and take photos to your hearts content.

I'm sure they'd be delighted to show you around and is anything really worth such high blood pressure. You might even get a nice cup of tea.

Same again

It'll be troubling you and your organisation more if people drown in the back of one of your ditched aircraft because their attempt to exit is impeded by what appears to be a woeful design flaw. And it will trouble you even more if it was a known hazard and you did bugger all about it. Now, seeing as I'm still waiting for you to tell me what your NVG limitations are from a few pages back (admit it, you don't really know, do you?) your cavalier disregard for legitimate safety concerns is of no real surprise to me. Does it not strike you as odd that at a time when in the North Sea we are having to concern ourselves with passenger size, window size and window accessibility following the Sumburgh ditching and the difficulty the deceased appear to have had escaping, in SAR it's considered ok to partially block the exits with seat backs? Will it take a multiple drowning before you sit up and take notice? I hope for your sake you're not the one that'll be in the dock. Because someone will.

It would be no trouble at all to entertain you Satsuma. Although the crews maybe out training to prepare for important issues such as the start of contract. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about many issues relating to the shiny new aircraft so please go along and ask yourself. You can play in the cockpit, run up and down the cabin and jump up and down in the hangar there as much as you like.

If you think that anyone actively involved in the contract is going to publish sections of the SAR Operations Manual here then you are very much mistaken. As I said before in relation to ANVIS, these details are protected and are on a need to know basis and you are clearly someone who does not need to know.

Same again
 

Same again, looking at the photos from the U.S., Satsuma does have a point, though, doesn't he? No number of personal slights or put downs can really move those seat backs quickly, unfortunately. Maybe they will change position between there and here and you know that but are keeping it secret for some greater good?

I don't think anybody except those who need to know will be allowed anywhere near the aircraft in Humberside. Shouldn't they be under armed guard due IStarbinladen?

"Don't let the public near the thing, for goodness sake!! Yes they paid for it but they also pay my first pension and I don't let them anywhere near that phnaar phnaar"

Are tea making facilities up and running in Humberside? Good show.

Hey Crab

Couldn't agree more. I've been striving to emphasise at every opportunity that there can be very few teams as tightly knit and as mutually respectful as a SAR crew.

Ref length (but you know what they say about length!) it was an all-too-brief 4 years from '76 to '80. Brief but intense ... probably the most satisfying job an aviator can do.

I'd be interested in your input to the question I was asked yesterday; What have been the most significant changes between then and now? Apart from the obvious civilian handover I named GPS and colour IR. Got any good additions to that?

Jerry, I think the changeover from the Wessex to the Sea King was a very big change in capability - then the introduction of NVG and finally the change to the winchman's job spec, turning him/her into a paramedic.

Will the new SAR service bring as big a change as any of those? Who knows but technology can always surprise you.

Apparently there are no obstructed Emergency Exits on these 92s!

The 92 has only 4! emergency exits which are the 4 windows at each corner of the cabin and they are clearly marked as such on the inside and outside of the helicopter!
Any other window is just for pax entertainment like on a Fixed Wing.

Some numbties are playing dumb on purpose on this thread?

It's good to see Jerry and Crab taking a look at the changes that have occurred in the past. The history has a lot to offer us when trying to keep this change in realistic perspective.

as365n4

I'll try and make this as simple as possible for you. I think that's what's required. Look at the footage of the Humberside aircraft in this link.

Mountain Rescue Team helicopter training | Border - ITV News

Where the passengers are doing the brace position, you can see that the seats stretch all the way down to the ramp. In other words, they are in front of the rear starboard emergency exit.

If you look at the cabin photo a couple of pages ago, you will see that the seating configuration stops short of the emergency exit - yet what is clear is that the seat backs significantly obscure the escape windows. What is less clear is the emergency exit handle for the rear starboard exit (coloured red). You can see from its height above the floor that were a seat to be in front of that exit (as is the case with Humberside's aircraft and therefore, we must assume, all future UK Sar S92s), then access to the mechanism for opening the emergency exit is blocked by a seat - and perhaps by the chap sitting in it.

I can only count 8 passengers on the starboard side of that aircraft in the video which means they are probably seating two more (to meet the required 10) on the rearmost port seats behind the fuel tank - and thus also blocking the rear port exit and its activation handle. How can that meet with the safety regulator's approval? Escape windows being blocked is bad enough but I accept that they're not mandatory. Emergency exits (and their activation handles) being blocked is a different story and a big no no. So how has this slipped through the net?

As we used to say in the world of technical authorship, 'If all else fails, read the instructions'.

DfT contract spec for Lot 1:
"minimum rescue capacity per Aircraft of 8 Casualties/Survivors (2 of which are capable of being stretchered)"

Bristow SAR website, fleet section, Sikorsky S-92, stated capacity:
"21 persons as required – 3 stretchers, 10 seated persons, additional standing persons"

Bristow SAR website, fleet section, Sikorsky S-92 illustrations:
http://bristowsar.com/wp-content/upl...-survivors.jpg
http://bristowsar.com/wp-content/upl...figuration.jpg
http://bristowsar.com/wp-content/upl...ernal-view.jpg

Satsuma - you raise a point the airlines also struggle with. All airlines require the row of seats leading to the emergency exits to be clear of baggage, however should anyone seated in one of the (in economy) 3 seats be a large person who has become incapacitated then that emergency exit becomes blocked and unusable. We live in a world of compromise.

Maybe so, but at least that obstruction isn't designed in by the manufacturers.

I don't fancy the chances of anyone escaping from an uncontrolled ditching if they're in the rear half of that cabin. You can't expect multiple passengers to be simultaneously removing seats from their housing to facilitate their escape. That would be hard enough if it was warm, dry, the right way up and well lit. But it won't be, it'll be the opposite. They really need to address this with a seat re-design before tragedy strikes.

But how often are there going to be multiple passengers over the sea? As with the Sea King, the S-92s will spend most of their time with 4 crew on board and 1, maybe 2, casualties. And those casualties are rarely in a fit state to escape a ditching, however good the emergency exits are. The most common time that a SAR helicopter is full of pax (or should I say, non-aircrew folk) is when deploying MRT, which doesn't tend to happen over the water. Of course there are very occasional rig evacuations/whole ship's crew pick-ups, but these are the exception, not the norm - in stark contrast to the oil and gas aircraft. Does this mean that emergency exits being obstructed is ideal? Not at all, but let's not pretend this is a daily risk for the future SAR crews and their passengers.

Very good point TOTD.

Compare an RAF Sea King with non-crashworthy seating

http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/1...bcdc1d49bd.jpg

to an (admittedly partially fitted out CHC) S-92 with crashworthy seats push out windows behind each seat etc

http://img8.custompublish.com/getfil...urn=www.acg.no

However, the S92 is lacking the f'ing big door that the Sea King has halfway along the pax compartment - even fat boys can get through that one;)

Seems to be a f'ing big door at the back that a Sea King didn't have......

Ah but how long does it take to open/jettison?

As long as it takes to turn a handle!:ugh:

An EASA approved emergency exit needs to be simple, obvious, unobstructed, not require exceptional effort to open and to have conspicuous markings for use in the daylight and dark. It is doubtful therefore that the S92 ramp upper door would fall into this category whereas the Sea King cabin door window might (were it in need of EASA approval). The main S92 ramp certainly cannot be considered an emergency exit due to its mode of operation.

So to summarise the last few humorous posts the Sea king is betterer (yes I did spell better like a 6 year old would in an argument) because it has a big door in the middle near all the seats (not that you can actually sit on the seats due to the role equipment). The S92 is not as good because it's big ramp door is not an emergency exit (nor is the sea kings but let's not let facts get in the way). Priceless discussion going on here 😜

Most of them have probably never seen an S-92.

Well, just for them ...




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tonn...yer_detailpage

One thing that surprised me about that video was them tossing the winchman out at anout 100 ft.. I can appreciate the downwash being to strong to hover at 20ft or so but we had the same problem with the Puma. What we did was to approach at the normal low winching height, toss out the winchman and we would climb as the W/O kept him at the same height over the sea. We would then arrive at about 80 ft or so. After the pickup we would pull them up 20 ft. and descend as the W/O winched them in. I believe that a similar procedure was use for a cliff rescue.

It's all to guard against a cable breaking with somebody on it. I thought for a moment that with a dual winch you had a main and backup cable but it didn't look as if there was more than one. I can only assume that there is an awful lot of trust in the winch cable.

Not that I should worry too much, I'm not in the game anymore.

That is the SOP; I guess it just appears that they are higher than they actually are. 40' is standard height for deploying the winchman.

...or the Rad Alt is playing up

I was comparing the height above the sea with the rotor diameter of 56 ft. It looked nearly two rotor diameters clear.

I can see your PoV however, I would be very surprised if it were >40'. They are pretty anal about it, sometimes it can be a bit frustrating. Operationally it is different; if the winchman needs to go out at 3500', then so be it. Like most things nowadays, we are all becoming too risk averse.

With regards to the dual hoist; on the S92 you have an inboard and outboard hoist. On the AW139 (not sure about 189) you have a fore and aft mounted hoist. The are identical hoists, but are not /cannot be operated simultaneously. If one hoist were to fail (not cable snap) with, for instance 250' of cable out, the winchop attaches the serviceable hoist to the u/s cable via a karabina, and winches out delivering the 'S' hook to the winchman, who then connects himself to the new hook, unhooks from the other and is recovered to the a/c. The other cable is then either jettisoned or recover by hand to the a/c.
This is basic HHCO, hook hoist changeover, and would be carried out if after considering whether it would be prudent to return the winch man on a fixed cable to the deck or cliff etc, where they have just come from.
Hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs - no offence intended.