second hand Super Pumas
In the East Asian Tiger financial crash of the late 90s the Chinese company I used to work for bought the Sumsung Super Puma. Sumsung were strapped for cash so they unloaded their CEO's helicopter. It was beautiful. Full VIP leather fit with swivelling armchairs, airconditioning for the cabin and cockpit and a bar for the passengers. An airstair door on the port side and a seperate one under the boom so the plebs could get in the back was included. At the time nobody wanted a Super Puma so my company got it for US$7,000,000 with 482hrs on it.
It had a Korean registration. They stripped the armchairs out but the seat rails could only accept twelve seats that came from a crashed Bristow Tiger. In this fit the aircraft was based offshore with a Chinese crew doing inter field shuttles. Came the day when the company told me it was my turn to go offshore with it.
'I haven't got a Korean licence or a validation from Seoul so I can't fly it.' I didn't mention that the Chinese crews didn't either.
'Mayo wente, (no problem) we will get it a Chinese registration.'
The aircraft was on the ramp being turned round after arrival. Within five minutes a couple of enginers went out with a role of black sticky tape and covered the Korean reg witha new number.
TIC (This is China) I thought, so off I went and flew it. When I brought it back after a week they towed it into the hangar and sprayed a completely different set of numbers on.
I had to digress a bit. A second hand Super Puma will have something like 15 to 20 thousand hours on it which it probably more than the RAF's Pumas.
Most of them would have been used offshore, or even worse, logging.
There is a popular misconception among miltary helicopter pilots, I used to be the same, that offshore helicopters have it easy compared to the rough and tumble of a military one. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. An offshore helicopter spends almost all of its time taking off at MAUW and then spending hours in high speed cruise, landing on a deck, reloading to MAUW and high speed cruising back again. When the BV234 was introduced on the North Sea the factory engineers were horrified with the punishment the aircraft was taking. It was never resolved and it was one of the reasons it came off the North Sea.
Bristow Helicopters will not accept a factory reconditioned gearbox that has been used on a logging 332. End of story. I, personally would not touch one with a bargepole. They come very cheap.
On a personal note a query. Whilst I was on 33 Sqn I used to bleat about things that I felt would improve life. One thing happened after I left that interest me.
The standard 330 was fitted with five fuel tanks. The 330C, the RAF one, had the fifth tank removed and was replaced with the Decca receiver. When the Decca was replaced by a little box called GPS did the RAF fit No 5 tank? It was worth another 300 kgs of fuel. The 330J I flew had six tanks, one replaced the load pole hole and that had about 1500kgs of fuel on board. I was always strapped for fuel on a 330C so I wonder if somebody saw sense.
Sorry about the ramblings but we are discussing my favourite aircraft.