Ah, the old "Bristow Knows Best" attitude rears its ugly head again! I listened to that bovine fecal matter for too many years. Having been at both the factory and in operations I know the factory tends to draw input from all operators and is able to consider those inputs from a much more impartial perspective than some of the contributors.
Shall we use one small example....that being the wonderful mod to the 212's by Bristow where they removed the torgue limiter (simultaneously removing the torque damping as well) so as to save one of the North Sea Juniors at Eket from taking a swim when he had a Super Puma Flashback on takeoff or landing in a machine that did not have the excess of power they had grown used to while plodding to and fro on the North Sea.
How many overtorques did we see as a result of monkeying about with the factory design of the aircraft on what would best be described as a very unthoughtout concept. It was the pilots....not the aircraft that had that problem.
A second example would be the walhalla over generator bearings on the 212.....despite the factory being able to identify the exact lot of bad bearings and thus institute a corrective action that cured the ill.....Bristow probably still has their modified procedure in place for the 212.....that is shutting down the engine iat the first indication of a generator problem.
Bristow does some things very right....but the attitude that "Mama knows best" doesn't fly. All one had to do was compare the fatal accident rates for ACN and Bristow Nigeria to see the patent disproof to that mindset.
As to my being here on Christmas....me dear Mum is having a kip....and when she awakes I will go fix her dinner for her. Until then, I am left to my own devices. Since I just love the sound of hissing hot air....I thought a Christmas visit to Rotorheads would be good fun.