TLC have been struggling for a long time. The product has been available for two decades now and was set at a keen price point that competitors did not care to match. Unfortunately the machines were well made, robust and had a tendency to be forgiving of maintenance . They also only catered for skid equipped machines – the design for wheeled helicopters and fixed wing just never made it to market. In their heyday, the 1990s, skids were in but increasingly wheeled helicopters have grabbed a significant hold on the market.
All of the skid equipped emergency services helicopter operators and MROs in the UK have their robust and long living Heli-Lifts - and probably a spare in store.
Even TLC had its own cache of spare Heli-Lifts, they were ones that NPAS had no further call for as they massively downsized their bases. I am told that they were there at no charge and, if true, that was a commercial mistake. Every little helps.
So NPAS may have to find some space in a hangar near Doncaster....
A great pity, Tony was one of the best and its sad it came to this.