Originally Posted by
bront
My company did firefighting in South Africa and a UN contract in Mozambique. The company fell apart due to a crooked South African partner and just as crooked Russian partners, got pretty ugly in the end but I never got shot so guess it was a win. Couple of others tried to make a go of it in South Africa after me but they also fell by the wayside and eventually the Civil Aviation pulled their certification. Not sure what that was all about. Sorry but no contacts anymore.
I did quite a bit of long lining and firefighting in them and their performance is hard to beat. Only helicopter better would be the Kamov in my opinion. I've also fire fought in a Blackhawk and the Mi out performs it.
And yes, the throttle worked the wrong way, had to think about that every time I opened or closed it, was a very hard habit to change.
Sounds fascinating man ! Must have have been adventure in the good old days over there !
Originally Posted by
jimf671
Oh I get that. And to some extent that is part of the current 'Super-Puma Effect': in the North Sea it was doing most of the work so it had most of the accidents. However, what is also true is that we have come a long way since the Mi-8 was introduced in so many ways. One of those ways is the design of the aircraft. The low accident and fatality rate of H225 and S-92 is partly due to the training level and regulatory effort that has been implemented where most of those aircraft are deployed but those are still safer aircraft by design than an AS332 or S-61N or Mi-8.
That’s definitely true, we’ve come a long way since.. it’s basically a classic warbird now, like the Huey or the DC-3, which never met or was intended to meet todays standards.. still they have a feeling and spirit no modern piece of technology will ever have again, ever.
Originally Posted by
N707ZS
Thanks N707ZS ! I found a couple of other ATOs in eastern Europe, maybe they have some more contacts about the current operators which may hire pure civilians without experience on type, good idea !
Originally Posted by
Same again
I was working at a civil/military airfield in Libya some years ago. Near to our hangar were a few Military Mi-8 machines that we all assumed were waiting for disposal as they had no covers or blanks of any kind, were covered in dust and sand and we saw no activity there for months. Then one day a truck pulled up, a few people got out, opened the Mi-8 cowlings, put some oil in, scraped the dust off the cockpit windows, started up and took off. Try doing that in a Western machine.
Ahah ! Russian style ya ! It’s known the designers got exactly this in mind, tough birds nor requiring hangars and constant care.. from what you say it proved to be true !
Originally Posted by
chevvron
Try 'Aces High' at Dunsfold.
Checked that, looks to be movie props ! Will be hard to pursue a career in that path ahah, thanks for participation though