The comments made are not insulting. In our company, most times when we have airtests to carry out, the engineers don't accompany us, ie on an eng test after change out etc. During the day, there are two engineers on duty, so they are usually busy doing other things. We don't have the luxury of excess numbers of engineers.
Batboy, i'm sorry to hear that you weren't happy during a flight. Although it was one of 'the competition', we're all involved in the same game, and it's preferable for the pax to be happy. I'm very surprised that the a/c continued flying with pax, even though that vibration was still apparent. I doubt very much that anyone would agree to fly if the same thing happened again. I guess if you all speak up and make it known you're not happy to fly then another a/c may become available for task.
As a passenger please remember one thing. When we're sitting up front, we wouldn't be flying unless we thought it was safe to do so. Stable Extrovert does not equal Suicidal Tendencies. Not always anyway!
and I don't know anyone I fly with who would fly an aircraft which they thought wasn't safe.
We understand the passengers concerns, only last weekend we had a pax decide he wasn't happy to fly, and he was disembarked just before departure. Just remember in a day, we could do as many as 20 trips to your one. Hope that helps to allay some fears. Ask any question you like on here, i'm sure we all don't mind putting your mind at ease.
Just as an aside, any aircraft has an MEL (Minimum Equipment List) If something is unserviceable in the aircraft, it may just be that the helicopter can still fly, but with a restriction, and we refer to the MEL to check this.
If it says we can't fly, then we don't.