Originally posted by
SLXOwft
I have to say I find the noise of passing 'executive' helicopters far more disturbing / irritating.
Absolutely agree on this but I am surprised by the favourable comments on the Merlin. I live right in the centre of the procedure turn onto the ILS for 08 and this is often used by Merlins. I find the noise loud AND irritating while the Chinook is just loud.
However, none of them are as irritating as the noise from a Duchess in fine pitch which we used to hear a lot before the flying schools disappeared.
As far as Westlands is concerned, my experience is as a quality manager of one of their suppliers. For many years, all our work was done under our MoD approval and was no problem. However, after they built a helicopter under the Mod system they discovered that it was for a civilian customer and the CAA would not accept it, they insisted that everything we did had to be under our Westlands approval. This brought us under an auditor who had no technical or engineering experience and the small amount of work we had wasn't worth the agro.