Another Helicopter Ditches in the North Sea.

[lol-lol]

I come up to Dyce sometimes as my company has offices up there and it can be mad busy but helicopters cannot glide but there is no other way other than supply vessel to get to the rigs. Brilliant but slightly unnatural although I gather slow mo of some insects show they are more helicopter than fixed wing flap.  Sure we can learn a lot more about what happens when you get engine or gearbox failure and need to ditch.

 

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/article.aspx/1152005

[gadgetman]

dont think there going to fit on a Rig.

The osprey is too heavy as well

[mdon]

There is a many reason that you are not flying 16 passengers to their work in a Sea King.

They are civilians, & like a proper seat & a means of escape if possible.

They deserve some degree of comfort.

Well the sea king is about as safe as you can get with big enough escape doors on either doors.

As for being civilians and a degree of comfort, I've never heard anyone complain when being airlifted of the Lake District fells when needed and I think the 'comfort' of your own bed when you make it back to the mainland safe and sound for out weighs anything the puma could offer. If the workers seriously ever complained about being taken by sea king if offered then they would need a good slap!

[Ootohere]

Flying to & from your work every 2 to 3 weeks or more often is rather different do you not think,

but point taken.

 

Sea Kings are stopping doing the Search & Rescue Duties now that Bristow have the contract.

that will be age and economic considerations.

EDIT, Mk5 Sea Kings 40-50 years old.

 

Thats Bristow that were at Dyce in the Early 70's flying out of 2 hangers and flying the North Sea ever since.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21934077

http://www.hmfriends.org.uk/bristow50th.htm

 

george

[mdon]

Flying to & from your work every 2 to 3 weeks or more often is rather different do you not think,

but point taken.

 

Sea Kings are stopping doing the Search & Rescue Duties now that Bristow have the contract.

that will be age and economic considerations.

 

Thats Bristow that were at Dyce in the Early 70's flying out of 2 hangers and flying the North Sea ever since.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21934077

http://www.hmfriends.org.uk/bristow50th.htm

 

george

I understand but I've spent hundreds of 12 hour shifts in the rear of public order vans and ballistic vehicles ranging from old LDV Sherpas to modern X5s and they have all got me home safe which is the main thing.

Yeah it'll be a sad day when they finally take over and the bright yellow or grey and red Sea kings disappear from our skies.

[Ootohere]

Was there much risk of drowning while sitting in a vehicle on the public highway,

or was a pair of knee high wellies enough to keep your feet dry?

You could just have walked home.

 

george

[silver1011]

You could just have walked home.

 

That's like saying the lads on the rigs could just swim home.

[mdon]

Was there much risk of drowning while sitting in a vehicle on the public highway,

or was a pair of knee high wellies enough to keep your feet dry?

You could just have walked home.

 

george

No, but there was quite a risk of bricks and things coming through the public order vehicles or even rounds during riots or armed deployments

Is that not enough risk to warrant safe travel over comfort or do you want to exchange some more snotty replies while trying to measure manhoods?!

[Ootohere]

I think the point of a serious post in a serious thread is being missed, and that is sad.

But thats possibly to be expected.

 

if you thought it was meant by me as an attempt at humour it was not.

& Post #32 is just another example of lack of respect for a very serious and sad situation..

 

george

[mdon]

I think the point of a serious post in a serious thread is being missed, and that is sad.

But thats possibly to be expected.

 

if you thought it was meant by me as an attempt at humour it was not.

& Post #32 is just another example of lack of respect for a very serious and sad situation..

 

george

I think the serious point is that people (not just you) would rather complain about travelling in comfort before safety while travelling once very few weeks which to be honest is just ridiculous. There's are people the world over suffering uncomfortable modes of travel either be sea, air, road or rail on a daily basis because it provides safety and you tried to mock this and as a result I feel post #32 is well justified. Silver isn't mocking a sad loss of life, rather your reply to me.

[silver1011]

I think the serious point is that people (not just you) would rather complain about travelling in comfort before safety while travelling once very few weeks which to be honest is just ridiculous. There's are people the world over suffering uncomfortable modes of travel either be sea, air, road or rail on a daily basis because it provides safety and you tried to mock this and as a result I feel post #32 is well justified. Silver isn't mocking a sad loss of life, rather your reply to me.

 

Well said mdon.

 

George, any 'lack of respect' originated in your post #31. Knee high wellies? Walking home? Please.

 

Given a choice safety must surely take priority over comfort. 

[Ootohere]

I think you need to read my words that were quoted in #28, & included 'They deserve some degree of comfort' .

An end point on the subject of safety.

 

There are reasons that Sea Kings have not being doing North Sea Transportation over the past decades.

But that seems to be irrelevant in this thread.

If they were suitable they would be in use.

 

Safety does not end with the flight, it all continues when the staff arrive at their destination and start work.

But yes Safety needs to be an overriding concern in the transport, rather obviously chosen.

 

george

[KenONeill]

Serious evaluation of S-61 (and Sea King) vs S-92 for SAR:-

 

S-92 is faster and longer endurance.

S-61 has a smaller main rotor, which means it creates less downdraft, and sometimes can get closer to the casualty.

 

You pays your money...

 

I can't comment on the (Super) Puma, beyond that there seems to be a bit of an epidemic of crashes in the last 5 years.

[Ootohere]

Just back from the Heliport, from dropping someone off thats gone out with Bristow.

 

'Total' have chartered 4 ships to do sea transfers & some are going fixed wing to Norway, to get to the platforms from there.

 

george

[Day-VRS]

Just back from the Heliport, from dropping someone off thats gone out with Bristow.

 

'Total' have chartered 4 ships to do sea transfers & some are going fixed wing to Norway, to get to the platforms from there.

 

george

 

I found Sea Kings to be quite comfortable actually lol. 

 

Day

[Ootohere]

Was that to and from the rigs?

They are not using them anyway, even if there are any ready to go.

 

My son never got off by helicopter today, so just needs to take a fixed wing to Norway and fly out from there.

 

george

[snow_muncher]

As reported by the national news we only hear about the crashes, but what's the background to this  - eg has there been an ongoing issue of less serious failures and maintenance issues ?

[parisbun]

As reported by the national news we only hear about the crashes, but what's the background to this  - eg has there been an ongoing issue of less serious failures and maintenance issues ?

 

No the Super Pumas in their different variants are used worldwide, around 900 or so I believe, there are no on going issues. Lets wait and see what the air investigators say before we start pointing fingers.  

Edited 27 August, 2013 by parisbun

[Clunkclick]

I don't know, but no smoke without fire (Sorry) :-

 

Helicopter-crash-workers-told-to-put-big-boy-pants-on-after-expressing-safety-fears

 

 

Remember, the Puma was designed, over forty years ago, as a land-based troop carrier/utility helicopter - maritime design is a whole other ball game. Salt gets everywhere and the buffet and stress on airframe and transmission from high frequency, low level sea transits will be greater than that on land journeys .For these reasons they should have been written-off and replaced years ago i.e. well short of their normal land-based service life.

 

And the RAF ones, which have been confined to land-ops only and which probably had  lower use and a higher standard of maintenance during their lives, have been the subject of a recent  upgrade:-

 

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/britain-prepares-to-modernize-its-puma-helicopters-03784/

 

Commercialism. Say no more.

 

 

Nick

Edited 27 August, 2013 by Clunkclick

[parisbun]

I don't know, but no smoke without fire (Sorry) :-

 

Helicopter-crash-workers-told-to-put-big-boy-pants-on-after-expressing-safety-fears

 

 

Remember, the Puma was designed, over forty years ago, as a land-based troop carrier/utility helicopter - maritime design is a whole other ball game. Salt gets everywhere and the buffet and stress on airframe and transmission from high frequency, low level sea transits will be greater than that on land journeys .For these reasons they should have been written-off and replaced years ago i.e. well short of their normal land-based service life.

 

And the RAF ones, which have been confined to land-ops only and which probably had  lower use and a higher standard of maintenance during their lives, have been the subject of a recent  upgrade:-

 

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/britain-prepares-to-modernize-its-puma-helicopters-03784/

 

Commercialism. Say no more.

 

 

Nick

 

Absolutely not commercialism Nick , no company can afford to compromise on safety if they get it wrong they are out of business.The oil companies do not own the helicopters they charter them the same way travel companies do. The flights to the platforms are not low level and as they have been operating since the 70's people are well aware of corrosion issues. I am pretty certain that no incidents in the North Sea have been caused by corrosion.

If cost was an issue they would stick the guys on boats and basket transfer them up to the platforms, Trust me there would be an outcry from the workers if that were to happen on a regular basis.

The majority of the pilots flying these aircraft are ex Airforce or Navy, do you honestly believe they would be flying choppers they believed were unsafe or not properly maintained ?   

[Blackline Stu]

I don't know, but no smoke without fire (Sorry) :-

 

Helicopter-crash-workers-told-to-put-big-boy-pants-on-after-expressing-safety-fears

 

 

Remember, the Puma was designed, over forty years ago, as a land-based troop carrier/utility helicopter - maritime design is a whole other ball game. Salt gets everywhere and the buffet and stress on airframe and transmission from high frequency, low level sea transits will be greater than that on land journeys .For these reasons they should have been written-off and replaced years ago i.e. well short of their normal land-based service life.

 

And the RAF ones, which have been confined to land-ops only and which probably had  lower use and a higher standard of maintenance during their lives, have been the subject of a recent  upgrade:-

 

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/britain-prepares-to-modernize-its-puma-helicopters-03784/

 

Commercialism. Say no more.

 

 

Nick

 

 

Absolutely not commercialism Nick , no company can afford to compromise on safety if they get it wrong they are out of business.The oil companies do not own the helicopters they charter them the same way travel companies do. The flights to the platforms are not low level and as they have been operating since the 70's people are well aware of corrosion issues. I am pretty certain that no incidents in the North Sea have been caused by corrosion.

If cost was an issue they would stick the guys on boats and basket transfer them up to the platforms, Trust me there would be an outcry from the workers if that were to happen on a regular basis.

The majority of the pilots flying these aircraft are ex Airforce or Navy, do you honestly believe they would be flying choppers they believed were unsafe or not properly maintained ?   

 

The RAF over service all of their aircraft. They do a full service on the aircraft after each flight (unless for fixed wing aircraft they hotpit - engines still running refuel - or a rotors turning refuel for helicopters) which civilian air companies do not do. They just refuel the aircraft and send it back up again. I'm not sure how often civilian companies service their aircraft but its not after every flight. For instance when we had Harriers they were serviced after every flight but the yanks just refuelled theirs, had a quick walk round and sent it back up again and as a result lost more of them than us. Another example are Tornado's. The Italians don't do nearly as much maintainance (not servicings between flights) on theirs and they on average loose twice as many as us and our Tornado's have more hours on them. Go figure that. It just goes to show that the more maintainance you do to an aircraft the safer it will be but you then get to the point where it becomes unviable to fly them because you are constantly working on them and not flying them which brings its own problems.

[Clunkclick]

The RAF over service all of their aircraft. They do a full service on the aircraft after each flight (unless for fixed wing aircraft they hotpit - engines still running refuel - or a rotors turning refuel for helicopters) which civilian air companies do not do. They just refuel the aircraft and send it back up again. I'm not sure how often civilian companies service their aircraft but its not after every flight. For instance when we had Harriers they were serviced after every flight but the yanks just refuelled theirs, had a quick walk round and sent it back up again and as a result lost more of them than us. Another example are Tornado's. The Italians don't do nearly as much maintainance (not servicings between flights) on theirs and they on average loose twice as many as us and our Tornado's have more hours on them. Go figure that. It just goes to show that the more maintainance you do to an aircraft the safer it will be but you then get to the point where it becomes unviable to fly them because you are constantly working on them and not flying them which brings its own problems.

That's my thinking.

 

Pilots may not be the best people to judge whether an aircraft is serviceable, especially maritime aircraft or those used in a maritime environment. By the time they are able to sense anything is wrong through negative feedback from airframe, stick, engine, instruments the problem is probably already well developed. I'd trust frequent servicing, the opinion and a stricter sign-off procedure on the part of the engineer officer maintainers.

 

Its up to the oil companies to pay decent charter rates so that the hire companies have an adequate fleet size to enable them to do the required flying and the extra maintenance/stand-down time on maritime aircraft of this age or simply pay the hirers to run the aircraft for shorter life spans - everyone knows how maintenance costs on older kit goes sky high.

 

Main problem here is  an economic/commercial one, monopsony - the oil industry is the only buyer of the service, so they have the whip hand in any contract price negoiations. I suspect that any organisation that tried to buck the oil companies wouldn't get their contract renewed or any future repeat business world-wide. The oil companies, like any big organisation dealing with small-fry, just bully. Another  case demonstrating the need for regulated markets ? - in this case to counteract the detrimental effect caused by the contracting parties being of greatly differing sizes.

 

Nick

Edited 28 August, 2013 by Clunkclick

[Ootohere]

Aberdeen Airport is always busy,

but now its particularly so as charter flights are going to Norway, Strananger, and then the wait is now

happening in Norway until you get your flight to the rig from the heliport.

 

EDIT.

They fix GPS Trackers to Whales, Fish and stuff and track their Migrations.

How come in 2013 they have Black Boxes on Aircraft & have no tracker on they so that they can not be quickly 

found and analysed.

ie, The tail of the Super Puma which crashed contained the Black Box & this has not been found yet.

 

OT,

but Syria about to kick off & what is happening in the North Sea,

Must be just about 'The Perfect Storm',  for a big hike in Oil & Energy prices & that will no doubt be at the pumps pretty soon.

 

george

[parisbun]

That's my thinking.

 

Pilots may not be the best people to judge whether an aircraft is serviceable, especially maritime aircraft or those used in a maritime environment. By the time they are able to sense anything is wrong through negative feedback from airframe, stick, engine, instruments the problem is probably already well developed. I'd trust frequent servicing, the opinion and a stricter sign-off procedure on the part of the engineer officer maintainers.

 

Its up to the oil companies to pay decent charter rates so that the hire companies have an adequate fleet size to enable them to do the required flying and the extra maintenance/stand-down time on maritime aircraft of this age or simply pay the hirers to run the aircraft for shorter life spans - everyone knows how maintenance costs on older kit goes sky high.

 

Main problem here is  an economic/commercial one, monopsony - the oil industry is the only buyer of the service, so they have the whip hand in any contract price negoiations. I suspect that any organisation that tried to buck the oil companies wouldn't get their contract renewed or any future repeat business world-wide. The oil companies, like any big organisation dealing with small-fry, just bully. Another  case demonstrating the need for regulated markets ? - in this case to counteract the detrimental effect caused by the contracting parties being of greatly differing sizes.

 

Nick

 

Nick

No disrespect mate but you have no idea of what you are talking about "the oil industry" does not negotiate with Helicopter operators, individual companies do. Its actually a tight oligopoly with only 3 companies providing the service. Trust me oil companies pay top dollar charter rates. Actually Stu's point re maintenance is not valid either there have been far more Tornado crashes than Super Puma's.

Like I said lets wait until the case of the accident is proven before we start speculating on the cause.

 

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/aircraft_by_type/tornado.htm    

[Blackline Stu]

Nick

No disrespect mate but you have no idea of what you are talking about "the oil industry" does not negotiate with Helicopter operators, individual companies do. Its actually a tight oligopoly with only 3 companies providing the service. Trust me oil companies pay top dollar charter rates. Actually Stu's point re maintenance is not valid either there have been far more Tornado crashes than Super Puma's.

Like I said lets wait until the case of the accident is proven before we start speculating on the cause.

 

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/aircraft_by_type/tornado.htm    

 

Sorry I might not have been clear with what I was trying to get at. I wasn't comparing Tornado's to Puma's but meerly two differant airforces that fly Tornado's. I was also comparing the numbers of Tornado's that they fly (the Italians only had about 100 of them compared to the RAF's approx. 300 so of course the RAF will loose more aircraft but not 3 times as many as the Italians). Also that link that you have posted is out of date. There are at least 4 other Tornado's that should be on that list in the last few years but are not so I doubt the credability of that page.