Bristow Photos

[Dave Ed]

TIGO in Brazil

A story of taking a highly sophisticated flying machine into the middle of nowhere……

Back in 2001 I was lucky enough to be offered the chance of being one of the team to support an Aberdeen based Tiger that was to be based in Northern Brazil in support of a 6 month offshore drilling campaign by BP. At the time I was still posting stuff on the Skyweaver website so armed with a non-digital camera I intended to take lots of pictures to tell the complete story of a typical posting into the middle of nowhere. Not just the flying maintenance side of things.

As all of us know, the flying and maintenance side of a new overseas posting is normally the easiest part of job. Getting used to unfamiliar surroundings, working with local population, erratic communications, support network and spares back-up, poor facilities, challenging climates, bugs and wildlife (including the local girls!), dodgy food and water supplies, less than ideal accommodation all make for memorable tours.

Obviously, I will spread the 50 odd pictures over quite a few postings. The comments on the pictures might seem a little "basic" at times, but they were added for friends and relatives quite a while ago.

So here we go…



On or about January 6th 2001 G-TIGO left Southampton on a freighter bound for Jacksonville, Florida.

From there it departed on an approximately 5 day ferry flight to Amapa in the state of Amapa, Brazil. I had a particular interest in this particular contract as I was one of the engineers manning it.
Amapa lies close to the equator in the Amazon Delta, the climate being tropical with humidity reaching 100% with wet and dry seasons. The airstrip forms part of an old U.S. Air force base dating back to the 2nd World War when it was used as a base for antisubmarine patrols. This web address has some interesting pictures of the Airships and crews that were based at Amapa airfield in 1945.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grappie/with/3087449335/

The contract was for an initial 120 day offshore drilling programme for BP and the aircraft to be used was a Bristow International AS 332L Tiger (G-TIGO) with an S61 provided by Aeroleo as a back-up. The Tiger was IHUMS equipped.

7/03/2001 The following is an excerpt from a phone call by Ian Robinson:
“It's like working in a water fall........no hangar, no spares yet, snags galore, no hot water at "hotel", 12-14 hour days, flying the ***** off it. All surrounding "land" 3 feet underwater. Bring wellies, mossie net, multi vits, anti s**t pills, rehydration salts, etc etc but you can get a cold beer although no time to drink it!”

Yup, I was really looking forward to it...............


30/05/2001 "And how it really panned out.................."



So this was our first view of the base, turning down wind, on board the North Star Bandeirante having taken off from Belem 1 hour 30 minutes previously. The total journey time from home was about 40 hours, routing Heathrow, San Paulo, Rio, Belem, Amapa.



This was the scene at 7.30am on a typical morning when things were running smoothly (ok, probably an exception!) The Bristow/Aeroleo staff having left the "Hotel" at 6ish will have endured the 10 km tortuous journey to work along a dirt track filled with pot holes, mud holes and lined with vultures. Comments like " ooh look, is that a ****" ( Replace **** with any form of wildlife we saw EVERY morning) didn't help matters!

The picture shows the North Star Bandeirante taxiing in to drop off passengers who having flown up from Belem would then be whisked through the terminal and boarded on the Tiger for the 1h 30m flight to the drill ship CR Luigs.

The "hangar" was for show only for the first six weeks at Amapa as the floor resembled the dirt track mentioned above.



The drill ship CR Luigs tasked with drilling two holes thousands of feet below the surface and held on position with GPS controlled trim engines. The first hole was approximately 200 miles offshore and the second about 175 miles which gave a round trip sortie time of about 3 hours. The manifest for the Tiger included everything from core samples to cauliflowers and sometimes pushed us to the limits trying to deal with surprise cargo in torrential rain.






Amapa city, the second biggest "city" in the state of Amapa and our home for six weeks. Note the lack of traffic as all roads out of town turned into dirt tracks, the nearest neighbouring sizeable town being Macapa some 100 km to the South.

Communication in the early days was mainly with sign language with meal ordering resembling a game of charades. The language is the Brasilian form of Portuguese and my thanks goes out to Sylvia, an Aeroleo dispatcher, who, with patience, managed to get us to speak a few words which made the second half of the tour far more fun!

Accommodation was in the Amapa Hotel which I suppose we would class as a back packer hostel but things did improve with the arrival of hot water. Often, breakfast would consist of little more than stale bread and water.

The restaurant I have labelled in the photo was the favourite social venue where we were well looked after by Soraya and Talita.




Probably about 7.45am with TIGO on the hot spot. The crew consisted of a Bristow training captain and an Aberdeen trained Aeroleo captain. All the Aeroleo staff were working a rotating 15 days on, 15days off routine.

....to be continued.............