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).

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.

Part II deals with two principal types of heliports: surface level heliports and elevated heliports. It also provides guidance on aspects not included in Annex 14, Volume II, e.g. site selection, site management and safeguarding, the design helicopter, surface loading, vertical procedures and virtual clearways.

Users of this manual are advised that specifications related to helicopter operations in other Annexes, for instance, Annex 6 - Operation of Aircraft, Part III - International Operations - Helicopters, may vary somewhat from those specified in Annex 14, Volume II. In such cases, the more demanding requirements should be applied. To assist users, the characteristics of the majority of helicopter types currently in use are considered in Part II, Appendix A, Chapter 3 of this manual.