In the early days of the Okanagan Helicopters Beaufort Sea & High Arctic ops we always ran 26 pax in the 61 with no F/A. I understand they are now down to 19.
In Edson we ran 29 (OKB?) pax with the 61L and 26 pax in the N. The destination at the mine was Hd 8500'+ in the summer.
No fuel dump on any of these a/c, but they were mostly shorter legs, so we didn't carry much center tank gas. We still used 20,500 for T/O though (or 22,000+ lbs external load), mostly.
Note 1: The Canadian East Coast was much different and more like the North Sea but with less wind and more fog.
Note 2: I was never good enough to pull off a full-on auto with this kind of load in a 61.
Generally, for an OEI approach we used a fairly flat rotor-disc-loaded (but with a little bit of power in reserve for Momma) and ran the the puppy's on.
Note 3: If you let the IAS drop below about 42 knts (at high GW) - she will fall like a stone.
Keep her above that and she's perfectly happy on one engine.
ps Been there
Last edited by oleary; 17th Oct 2008 at 08:33.