Many moons ago I was operating a 206 on a gravity survey out of Tom Price, W.A. Tiger country, with nowhere to go if the donk coughs. The 4 axis INS ( apparently out of a military tank!) took up the back seat, and had to be time set every 4 minutes or less, so up to 8am with the cooler temperatures we could fly about 8km between landings, then down to 4km legs when the OAT went above c.32C.
I couldn't work out why the Canuck flying opposite days to me, kept doing 8km way past 10am, until it transpired that he was using 5 minute power on every leg, since it was less than 5 minutes
I have no doubt he saved my life when he spent 6 hours one Friday flying with a broken skid tube, which couldn't be fixed when he got back on Friday PM as the welder was in t'pub
The engineer decided to ground the 206 on Saturday (my day) and change the compressor case halves, since the power assurance was trending down, whilst the skid tube was fixed. About 10 of the compressor stators were cracked, and bent over into the next row: without a doubt they wouldn't have lasted another day's flying.
Whether the abuse of the 5 minute power contributed, I don't know, but I was glad not to fly with that fellow again
