Bristow being big and British do have a way of cultivating a "We know better attitude" amongst its senior staff. They promote from within...take a cadet, train him in the Bristow way...fly him on the line the Bristow way...and ultimately promote him to management to carry on the Bristow Way. Sometimes that is good...sometimes not so good.
Bell's torgue management system on the 212 wasn't good enough for them....seems too many instances of 212's bleeding Nr during landings and some hard landings were being experienced....rather than admit the young North Sea boys that were being posted to gain command time were not able to adjust to the limited power of the 212 as compared to the Tiger (Super Puma Bristow style)....they elected to remove the torque limiting system. Alas...that also did away with the torque damping ability of the engines...and then the problem became rampant overtorquing. No telling how many trannies, drive shafts, and other moving bits got written off in the attempt to "save" an aircraft from potentially crashing on landing after drooping Nr. They ultimately reversed that decision after the individual mandating it retired. They would never listen to the analysis of the problem which pointed the finger at the real cause.
They also decreed that ditching after having a Generator hot light was the right idea....not withstanding it was determined a grand total of about 25-27 generators were affected by the mis-produced shaft/bearing and once replaced...that problem was solved.
Any discussion of those issues or any others resulted in the "Bristow Knows Best" response.....never mind it was the builder of the aircraft, the component, or a factory training facility that was attempting to take issue with the decision.
I actually heard the statement made..."Bell only builds them...they don't operate them." There was no response to the comment that all of the operators reported problems to the builder thus they gained input from all over the world and all of the operators and not just one source.
They did get it right on the S-61....as compared to the Norwegians....unfortunately they had two spindle failures that were the result of a peculiar way training was done on the aircraft that Bristow did not do. But for years the 61 side of the house were the derelicts and not the new boys.
Since we do not know from whence HC speaks....if in fact as Nick suggests, he may be a Bristow senior Wallah...could it be some of this Bristow mindset is rubbing off on HC.
Is this a case of "better the devil you know...than the devil you don't know" coming into play here.
Last edited by SASless; 11th Apr 2005 at 12:59.