Originally Posted by soouthmoother
End of the smuggle hole era.
Not quite. As I posted earlier the cabin trim fit in G-BFEU led to a similar fit in the Tigers, and Uncle Ron had a cardboard cut-out which fitted below the first aid kit that used to be in the Tiger's rear seat left armrest originally (just like the Puma). So the biscuits tradition continued on the Tiger with Uncle Ron out of Aberdeen.
Originally Posted by Fareastdriver
Never had a problem, Aberdeen or Sumburgh.
Then you were lucky. Flew G-BFEU with Andy Paton onto the Stena Seaspread which had been way out of limits for over 2 days. In those days you stayed onboard the helicopter and the deck crew (all wearing radio headsets) did the unloading/loading. My door window was opened and a large brown envelope with several boxes of cigars thrown in. On arrival at Sumburgh we were met by Customs who field stripped the cabin & baggage bay, but not the cockpit. I was flying down on the same Banderainte as our passengers, but Andy was kind enough to post on my share of the cigars in the company mail.
Flew a Tiger with Uncle Ron one day and he had not hidden his biscuits (cannot remember if the helicopter had the secret compartment that day). So he frantically smoked one from each packet and gave me half of the packets to stash in my immersion suit as Customs were in another field stripping mood that day.