...on a small island in the Caribbean
flyer43
I must pre-date you at Galeota, when I first arrived there the fleet consisted of 1 x Whirlwind, 1 x Bell 204B and 1 x Bell 206A. Later in my contract, it must have been about late '74 or early '75, the Whirlwind and the 204B were replaced by a couple of Bell 205A-1's (one used machine and one factory-new). As these were single-engine helicopters flying offshore they were fitted with fixed-floats at Galeota prior to being put into service. Inevitably the day came when we had to track the main rotor after some work had been performed and we used a tracking flag for this. I should have known that a Bell on fixed-floats with a possible lateral out-of-balance condition would be a bugger to track with a flag and I was right. I remember moving the flag inward very, very carefully and that I was successful with one blade but the next one sliced right through the canvas and almost tore the flag out of my hands. Luckily, no damage to myself or the helicopter and even more luckily, the notorious chief-engineer-with-no-tolerance-for-mistakes was on time-off that day. Lesson learnt.