Originally Posted by
luckyrat
Having flown the S61n for over 30 years (15,000hrs +), 23 years of which was ironically from day one on taking over the Falklands contract from Bristow on the 1st of July 1998. There is no helicopter better suited to the military support task. I have covered SAR when the 189 was down, albeit only in a MIR capacity, on numerous occasions. However on the rare occasions our “museum piece” S61 was u/s, there’s no way a 189 could take my load of 4000lbs of mixed freight and passengers to a peat bog field location!
Sensible helicopter to cover both SH & SAR in the Falklands is the S92, which Bristow already have.
You can't beat steam gauges, keep going long after glass cockpits have gone into melt down.
Just looking at one of Leonardo's finest, one unit u/s for over a week and the other has a delivery date of May 26th (which year was the question).