Coconutty that quote ascribed to me was quite clearly a precis ascribed to the Metropolitan Police newspaper The Job. [As quoted, April edition page 7 right at the bottom. The last two words?
[The Job]
Many items in PAN are clearly labelled as to source and errors not necessarily edited out. Errors in the italics I may well plead to.
As far as claimed performance goes professionals know that every airframe has trade-offs.
You can probably go to every UK air support web page operating the Squirrel and read that the AS355F has a 'two hour' patrol time.... uh.... since when?
Shall we tell them off?
I guess that the 145 [which is considerably bigger overall than the 135 and the 900] could quite easily pop a squad of 10 plus the crew across Brixton prison wall but as we all know perfectly well it isn't going to do it non-stop from Glasgow....
The EC Tech Data sheet actually disagrees with The Job. It states '1 or 2 pilots + 7 or 6 passengers....' But I think its likely it means in proper crashworthy seats in that configuration....
Operators such as the French Gendarmerie POSSIBLY where that 12 comes from would not necessarily worry about proper seats for a tactical mission.... so might it be 14?
The truth is too precious to tell every fool who asks!
True!