Bond bo105's?

[bolkow]

I am aware they are all being phased out to be repleaced by ex135's, but with UK fleets of up to 40 in their day, apart from the lighthouse releif aircraft, how did all those bo105's amass their hours before becoming air ambulances? Anyone know?

[ScotiaQ]

In the mid to late 70s - Bond (or North Scottish as it was then), amassed lots of hours based offshore. THey were stationed on Auk, Forties, Brent and Ninian - to name but a few.

I personally was on Brent when we had 2 almost new Bo 105s (G-BDYZ & G-BEZJ) - over the course of 12 months those 2 aircraft amassed over 1200 Hours each ! During that time they hardly ever left the Brent field - we had a Hangar on Nordraug and did all the maintenance offshore.

They were busy little bees in those days. Some still are, especially the Lighthouse Support Machines.

All Bond Bo 105s were built in the 70s as Bo 105D Models, they were nearly all re-shelled in the 90s to become Bo 105DBS models. The reshelled models are recognisable by their dual serial number on the CAA Registration Database.

Hope that's not too "anoraky".

[bolkow]

Thank you for taking the time to answer that for me, Yes, I figured they must be amassing their hours on offshore platforms and the like as I dont see many apart from lighthouse support machines aorund overland.
I did speak to an angineer from Bond once who was involved on stretching them, and he was telling me a story about one of his bosses asking him to let them know when any in the fleet were nearing the 20000 hour mark as apparently Eurocopter wanted to have a look at their condition. Apparently his replied "tell them they're a bit late mate, three or four of them passed the 20000 hour milestone a few months back!

[Brilliant Stuff]

Reshelling sounds a bit involved.

[500 Fan]

IHL BO-105s

Irish Helicopters Ltd have one Bo, EI-BLD, with around 16,000 hours on the airframe, I think. I guess that means its just run-in then!

[ScotiaQ]

Reshelling looks a bit involved

Reshelling was a bit involved. It involved getting a brand new airframe from EC(D) and installing all the components from your donor aircraft. However before all the components were installed, they were overhauled. At the end of the process you have a brand new, zero timed B0 105DBS-4. Only a couple of airframes were physically stretched, by the insertion of a plug. One such is G-NAAB S/No. 412 but that aircraft was not zero timed.

All this work was carried out by Rotortech ( a Bond subsidiary) at Cambridge.

Glad to be of assistance.

[bolkow]

actually they have two bolkows, EI-BLD and EI-LIT which was acquired around 1996 with 4000 airframe hours on it (ex-poilce from Quatar I think.)
EI-BLD has as you say in the region of 16000 hours on it now, and EI-LIT ( a stretched one) has in the region of 10000 hours done. Apparently both will be replaced in the not too distant future as the lighthouse authority plan to acquire their own in house EC 135 helicopter for offshore lighthouse work.

[bolkow]

Actually the technician I spoke to was involved in putting the pluf in G-NAAB, cant remember his name, a really friendly scottish man, he was working on Irish helicopters Bo 105 over ayear ago when it splayed its skids a little after a hard landing at the bailey lightohuse when it was caught be a wind shear. I assume EI-BLD is back flying again now, as I understand it the only issue was it had to be entirely stripped down to replace the skids as they go the whole way through the airframe between the fuel tanks.

[bolkow]

Do you happen to know what became of airframes such as G-BEZJ which were removed from service? Are they discarded or stored somewhere?

[ScotiaQ]

What Happens When Removed from service

The following airframes were destroyed in accidents :

G-BEZJ - Crashed in the Highlands, crew survived but the aircraft was written off and scrapped

G-DNLB - Crashed off Orkney and was destroyed

G-THLS - Fell off the back of a Lighthouse vessel.....unnoticed.

G-BAMF - was recently scrapped. It was never made into a DBS and was the original airframe - some 35 years old and had corrosion beyond economical repair.

There is one of the original 105D Airframes at Lands End - advertising Air Ambulance.

But as far as I know there are none preserved or stored anywhere.

[bolkow]

I have seen the airframe on the pole at lands end, but am frankly confused as to which airframe it is, it bore the reg G-BOND soem years back, but now has G-CDBS as of a few months ago when I was there. I know g-bond does not happen to relate to a real bo105 and according to the g-info site G-CDBS is still registered and flying and I could not get close enough to the airframe to see the serial plate and identify it from that. Its a mystery.

[quichemech]

Scotia Q,

G-NAAA and G-NAAB were stretched at ECD in 1998/1999 and neither of them were originally Bond machines.As you say the other were done at Rotortech.

Bolkow,

The really friendly Scottish ex bond engineer was probably Davie Gow, myself Davie and Ian Taylor were all heavily involved in the project for the original 2 AA coloured Air Ambulances which were Dorset and the North West machine.

I seem to remember that the Airframes were supplied by ECD, we gutted them and sent them back out to Germany for stretching, it's all a bit vague now as it was 9 years ago, ECD apparently had a fair few Bolkows kicking around at the time and they were in semi storage/ rot in Germany.

Not surprised MF has finally gone, the old girl spent so much time in salty climes that it shows the quality of the airframe to have lasted so long, it also says a lot for the Bond engineers who kept it going

[bolkow]

I can be certain of the name of the engineer but he had with him a detained photograph album that depicted the work on stretching NAAB from start to finish, from the welder making the initial cutting to the plug being added and its final acceptance or handing over of the finished product. I remember him saying that eurocopter supplied new wiring looms that were basically equal in length to the length of the stretch.

[Brilliant Stuff]

Thanks chaps.

[bolkow]

all these bolkows are retiring in 2009 I believe, I'd love to store them in my garden, as I'd hate to see them reduced to scrap.

[nodrama]

They won't retire. They just won't do HEMS work anymore.

[bolkow]

Really? What will the CAA allow them to do then because I understood it was the CAA that wanted to get rid of them altogether and that thyey could'nt carry onj in any capacity after next year. Am I wrong in that understanding?

[nodrama]

Doesn't mean that they can't continue to soar the skies in another country.

[chopper2004]

I worked at Rotortech for a number of years with BO-105 and work and they were fantastic to be with.

Especially the police and EMS conversions....got a lot of respect for the 105.
Last recent years just looked after tailboom repairs and parts repair

Back in 99 we had 3 redundsnt airframes from Germany Bundespolizei, the Interior ministry (orange rescue colours)

[quichemech]

As nodrama said they can soar with the eagles outside of EASA rules as Ambulances or Police machines, PAS have just sold one to a country in the sub continent.