scope:

FOREWORD

The Heliport Manual (Doc 9261) is divided into two parts to address helicopter landing areas at a range of offshore installations and vessels (Part I), as distinct from the heliports used in the onshore environment (Part II). Chapter references in this document are to chapters in Part I unless noted otherwise.

Although not exclusively the case, the types of facilities illustrated in Part I are typically used in the process of mineral extraction and for the exploration and/or exploitation of oil and/or gas in the offshore environment. Increasingly, however, installations equipped with helicopter landing areas are being used to service the offshore renewable energy sector, e.g. a substation with helideck is used as a base for helicopters shuttling around a wind farm. Although the current method of personnel transfer from a helicopter to a wind turbine (nacelle) tends to be helicopter hoist operations (HHO), rather than land-on operations, it is possible that in the future, considering the development of yet-larger wind turbines, some turbines may be equipped with helicopter landing areas that allow maintenance personnel to land on the turbine in the same way that a helicopter would land on an oil or gas facility.