Originally Posted by
KiwiNedNZ
Stornoway based S-92. Got to shoot with some awesome people on this visit. Even got hoisted down onto the ferry.
Mike Uniform was a legend in its own lifetime and then in another lifetime and now creating legends across Ireland. Originally, when Bristow got the Stornoway contract back in 1987, a succession of Sikorsky S-61N were used during the first couple of years until G-BIMU came along and it remained the principal SAR aircraft there until Bristow lost the contract to CHC in 2007. In dusty drawers across the world, and in obscure corners of the internet, there are faded photographs of fresh-faced young versions of Bristow managers and chief pilots when they were cutting their SAR teeth on the controls of Mike Uniform or Sumburgh's Oscar Charlie.
CHC introduced the Sikorsky S-92A at Stornoway and Sumburgh and capitalised on the goodwill built up over many years in the island communities and adjacent mainland toward the callsigns Mike Uniform from Stornoway (Lewis) and Oscar Charlie from Sumburgh (Shetland) by continuing those callsign with G-CGMU and G-CGOC. The above aircraft is the result of that change.
(After CHC lost the contract to Bristow in 2013, this second Mike Uniform became EI-ICU operating on the Irish Coastguard contract.)