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Old 20th Nov 2012, 17:55
  #10 (permalink)  
Fareastdriver
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: UK
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In 1979 I gained access to a Boscombe Down TP's report that recommended that the aircraft shouldn't be accepted into service without engine anticipators fitted; it was dated quite some years before 1979 (first HC1s came into service in 1971).
Everything about the Puma when it was bought was compared to the Wessex. Everything that was not Wessexy was slagged off. No anticipators, that were impossible to fit, Forward visibilty, not low enough, instrument lighting, the wrong colour. Some were reasonable like stability on the ground but even the engineers tried to service it like a Wessex.
The ultimate was when Den Holland and Phil Bleasedale had a doghouse come off and disable the tail rotor at 200 ft. They had to shut down both and carry out an engine off landing and if it wasn't for a wheel snagging a rabbit burrow they would have got away with it. They were dragged over the coals for not finding 'a power and control combination to enable flight to be continued'. A phrase lifted straight out of the Wessex checklist.

As Shy Torque says, 41 years later.
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