You may get a bit of insight into the early SA330 from the recent book on Alan Bristow.
Bristow bought the 330 from Aerospatiale and found it to be pretty much a waste of time in the North Sea environs. After he had many words with Aerospatiale they went back to the drawing board and as a result Bristow bought large numbers of the new version called the Tiger.
On such things was the Bristow fable built.
The book is well worth a read.