Belize…. various Army brains there thought they knew more about helicopters than the RAF.
I recall a certain non air crew Major at Rideau who couldn’t understand why Pumas (the underpowered HC1 back then) couldn’t fly with the full complement of 16 seats, put soldiers on all of them, add luggage or an underslung load and fill right up with fuel. We normally flew in 12 seat fit. He was convinced we were “short changing” him.
Having been advised otherwise he later claimed that the RAF were over estimating the weight of the average soldier and therefore more soldiers should be carried than we said we could.
As far as he was concerned, if a helicopter had floor space, it could be filled!
He instigated a formal “checkout” procedure where every soldier was individually weighed before flight. He shot himself right in the foot with that because his men were actually considerably heavier than the average weights previously used, so it was decreed from on high that we carried fewer than before. He deservedly earned the nickname “The bathroom scales Major”.
One particular flight we were regularly tasked for on Fridays was to take soldiers and a local policeman to an offshore island for “R & R” barbecue over the weekend (we weren’t invited). The load included passengers, various equipment but most importantly a large (cubic metre?) heavyweight aluminium trunk containing their food and drinks, in ice. Loading was supervised as usual by my crewman just before planned departure but the army delayed their flight by some hours. When we finally lifted off from the raised helipad, which was actually only just big enough to get the wheels on with care, being sized for a skidded Scout, I realised we were very much overweight and the Puma wouldn’t transition away as normal. I had no option but to continue trying to fly because the helipad was just behind us and the ground ahead was riddled with vegetation covering deep drainage ditches. We got very, very close to crashing into the ammo compound but just scraped over the trees!
When we landed at the island the soldiers couldn’t lift the food trunk off the aircraft. We shut down and then found that it was inexplicably full almost right to the brim with water! It had to be bailed out to get the weight down.
An investigation discovered that the Army, concerned about the delay causing their beers to get warm, had kept going back to the aircraft and topping up the ice as it melted without telling us. A cubic metre of water weighs a great deal!