Slide 1 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Research Initiatives for Improving the Safety of Offshore Helicopter Operations David Howson UK Civil Aviation Authority

Slide 2 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Background  Helicopter Airworthiness Review Panel (HARP) Helicopter Human Factors Working Group Helicopter Health Monitoring Working Group  Chinook fatal accident  Helicopter Safety Research Management Committee (HSRMC)  Cormorant ‘A’ fatal accident Review of Offshore Safety and Survival (RHOSS)  2003 – European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)

Slide 3 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helicopter Health Monitoring Research In-service trials to evaluate suitability of technology for the environment very successful. Voluntary retrofit of HUMS funded by oil companies. Seeded defect test programmes to investigate effectiveness. Advanced analysis of HUMS VHM data: - objective to enhance analysis using unsupervised machine learning. - interim results very promising - sensitivity significantly improved and false alarm rate reduced!! - implementation will be ground station software update.

Slide 4 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helicopter Emergency Flotation Research – Ditching Stability Mismatch between certification standards and wave climate in North Sea - high capsize rate. Mismatch between time needed to escape and breath-hold time. Float scoops provide one sea state stability improvement at low cost. Mitigate consequences of capsize via provision of fall-back ‘side-floating’ attitude. Hydrodynamic and egress aspects successfully tested.

Slide 5 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helicopter Emergency Flotation Research – Water Impact Largest cause of fatalities in survivable water impacts is drowning. Best way of enhancing safety is to improve post crash operability of EFS. Finite element and empirical modeling to establish impact loads for range of water impacts. Automatic arming and deployment. Provision of redundant flotation unit(s), e.g. float(s) needed for ‘side-floating.

Slide 6 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helideck Environmental Research Environmental hazards: - turbulence, - windshear, - turbine exhausts, - flares, - flammable gas releases. Top-down review following heavy landing on Claymore CAP in 1995 resulting in: - development of turbulence criterion, - production of joint industry helideck design guide, - research into visualisation of turbine exhaust plumes, - work on development of wind shear criterion planned.

Slide 7 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Operations to Moving Helidecks Pitch, roll and heave limits poor predictors of tipping or sliding on deck. New deck acceleration-based motion severity index (MSI) developed. Aerodynamic loads significant too - wind severity index (WSI) developed. New MSI/WSI scheme: - directly related to risk of tipping/sliding, - independent of helideck location on vessel, - takes account of wind, - takes account of most likely motion for next 10 mins.

Slide 8 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helideck Lighting Research (1) Questionnaire-based survey of offshore pilots. Helideck difficult to locate due to colour of lighting. Floodlights cause glare and loss of night vision. Centre of helideck inadequately lit - ‘black hole effect’. Visual cues from floodlighting short range only.

Slide 9 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helideck Lighting Research (2) Revised green perimeter lighting well received, being implemented by industry and adopted by ICAO. Lit circle provides approach cues from 0.5NM. Lit ‘H’ provides final approach cues from 0.25NM. Lit circle and ‘H’ adopted by ICAO as alternative to floodlighting. In-service trials planned for winter 2006/7.

Slide 10 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Helicopter Flight Operations Monitoring Adaptation of existing fixed wing scheme to helicopters. Harder to define normality and hence abnormal situations. In-service trials very successful. Voluntary implementation in UK and Norway. Adopted as Recommended Practice by ICAO. Current work focused on enhancements: - low airspeed measure, - helideck environment monitoring.

Slide 11 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Offshore Approaches Weather radar: - not designed or certificated for task. - weather radar approaches not user- friendly. Dedicated trials of differential GPS successfully performed. - key performance parameters are availability and integrity. - effects of rotors on GPS reception could be significant – reduced availability. - SBAS (I.e. EGNOS in Europe) could provide the solution. Need for new equipment to cope with variable final approach track.

Slide 12 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Concluding Remarks Well-founded joint industry research programme. Over 20 problem areas addressed. Voluntary implementation of results by industry. Major improvement in airworthiness through health monitoring (HUMS). Significant operational safety benefits through flight data monitoring (FDM). Further projects near to delivering additional safety benefits. New joint industry funded initiatives under consideration. Broader participation welcomed.

Slide 13 IHSS Montréal, September 2005 Finally…… For more information on the UK CAA-run helicopter safety research programme see - and/or contact - Any questions?