Twotters sold ?

[Goffel]

Rumour or fact.

Does anyone know if it is a fact or just a rumour that ET is/has selling/sold all their Twotters.

Goffel...in denial.:ugh:

[sslut]

Fleet consolidation and will not be retendering for existing contracts is the word out there. Another rumour is that Airtech are going to replace the DHC6 contracts with slet410s - but then this IS just a rumour network...........:confused:

[Gooneybird]

Goffel....think you need to look at your verb conjugation there pal :)

What Twotter operators are left in the region now?

[Goffel]

Oi Gooneybird......whats this English lesson now..verb..????....ja ja.:E

Probably find that the Twotter pilots have got the required hours/experience and are now ready for their up-grade..(to the LET of course).:}

On a serious note....whoever buys the Twotters, hopefully they take on the crew that have made twotters their passion.

Looks like my offer just went out the window.

Goffel...having to start looking all over again..:ugh:

[Gooneybird]

LOL Goffel, must the pedantic ex Engrish teacher in me :}

As to looking for work, you and me both mate and also have the same hopes about the next purchaser.

[soggyboxers]

Caverton Helicopters in Nigeria just took delivery of their second Twotter. It is replacing an AW139 helicopter flying for NLNG between Port Harcourt, Lagos and Bonny Island.

[Finboss]

I heard ET want to consolidate their fleet to just 1900's so the rumor makes sense

[TomBola]

Goffel,

Caverton Helicopters now have 2 Twin Otters in Nigeria and Exxon Mobil are still running the beautifully refurbished 5N MPU from Eket. Good to see the old girls still giving great service. I wonder who will be the first company/country to operate the Viking aircraft in Africa.

[Gooneybird]

I wonder who will be the first company/country to operate the Viking aircraft in Africa.

Zimex, I imagine.

[chuks]

Sort of.

I just asked yesterday about this very thing, when I was told that Zimex is still on track to take delivery of the very first DHC6-400 sometime next year.

Some of the drivers are already in a tizz thinking about dealing with that glass cockpit. I just grinned and told them "300 hours," what conventional wisdom says is the period it takes to become fully acclimated to flying with glass.

I had to do a short IR course using a DA-42 (Garmin 1000), when I read the book, re-read the book, took the book back to my room, put it under my pillow and slept that way, used a desk-top trainer and had a few hours in a sim but it was still downright fascinating to actually fly a small aircraft single-pilot, no autopilot using glass. Lots of little buttons there and lots of menus, sub-menus, sequential actions, different modes... a few wrong button pushes and you can find yourself deep, deep in the woods with the birds having eaten up your trail of crumbs.

I had my fun on the Dornier 328 (Honeywell Primus 2000), when the most commonly-heard phrase on the flight deck was "What's it doing now?"

The fun-loving Germans fitted the 328 with two (2) INDEPENDENT heading bugs, both meant to be kept synched to straight-ahead. If the PNF had neglected this small but important task then pushing the change-over button often resulted in an unwished-for change of direction and much momentary confusion. The non-German contingent often cursed this curious decision, wishing for a pair of slaved heading bugs. That said, the Twotter's single bug on the left-hand side is sub-optimal for the person flying from the right-hand seat unless he or she has arms like a gibbon.

Ah well, there must always be something to moan about!

[Solid Rust Twotter]

...unless he or she has arms like a gibbon...


Hence the monkey grip overhead power levers.:}

[V1... Ooops]

...I just grinned and told them "300 hours," what conventional wisdom says is the period it takes to become fully acclimated to flying with glass.

No, it won't take anything even close to 300 hours to get used to the new instrument panel in the Series 400 Twin Otter.

I have flown the Series 400 for about 35 hours now (a ferry flight to and from the NBAA convention in Orlando, Florida), and it took me about 5 flights to get used to it. It would have taken less time if someone had been able to give me a 2 hour familiarization course, but one of the problems associated with 'first flights' is that you don't get a fam course prior to making the first flight :)

The primary flight displays use industry-standard depictions, and the flight management system (navigation system) follows many of the conventions that pilots are already familiar with from having used the Garmin 430 systems.

And - when you set the heading bug, it sets the same heading on BOTH sides. Same goes for the altimeter setting, unless the pilot optionally elects to configure the system for independent altimeter settings on each side, for example, if SOPs call for QHN on one side and QNE on the other during certain phases of flight.

[Gooneybird]

Good post V1,

How did she handle...same old Twotter?

[chuks]

It might be me then but I thought using the glass, at least to begin with, was not dissimilar to standing there naked while someone dumped a big bucket of hot, sharp-edged data over me. Where to look first, and which little button to push? Ooh, so many decisions, compared to the old round dials!

Of course part of the problem might be that I was so used to round dials and flying by the seat of my pants, so that jumping into the Dornier's near-state-of-the-art cockpit was a profound shock. With the power off there was just this blank, staring expanse of black glass, not ímproved much by power-up when then you got what the Germans call a "Mäusekino" (literally: a movie theatre for mice, kind of a busy display whose exact significance can be lost upon one).

This is "within living memory" that we used to tool around quite happily using pilotage, dead reckoning and a.m. broadcast stations to find all sorts of obscure places in Nigeria and beyond since GPS was just something we were reading about in articles titled "The World of Tomorrow", in there with rocket-powered roller skates and such.

I had a ferry flight once, taking a Cessna 404 from Libreville to Nairobi in the mid-80s when my enquiries about visual charts were met with a Manuel-like "Quoi?" Not a sausage! Well, sausage they had, at a very nice clubhouse, when what I was after were pilots' supplies, WAC charts to be specific, of which there were none and of course there was none of this "direct-to" GPS stuff we take for granted today!

I went downtown and bought a chld's school atlas so that I could identify, follow and avoid, even, major terrain features. That worked a treat across Zaire, as was!

Nowadays, given that pretty much everyone is younger than me (and how did that happen?) and has grown up with computers, Play Stations, PDAs and God knows what-all else then the glass cockpit shall be a doddle, eh?

Okay, it might not take the average sharp young guy of today the 300 hours it allegedly took my generation but I just do not see jumping right in with something like 5 hours experience and feeling as comfortable as with the old "basic T". Of course part of that might be the way we wrinklies are set in our ways where the yoof of today seem to take change in their stride.

Once that comfort level is reached, however long that takes, then the capabilities of the glass cockpit would never have you wanting to go back to the Stone Age, no.

Too, nowadays we all have much more exposure to GPS, such as the Garmin 430, plus the basic display coding is standardised among Green (VOR), Magenta (GPS) and Red (We are all going to DIE!) for all these different units. Well, something like that anyway.