Originally Posted by
nomorehelosforme
As a matter of interest did Kerry Packer have any helicopters?
Yes: the saga of the Boss, Biggles and suitable helicopters!
Nick inherited an ex North Sea Bristow S76 which (as you'd expect) wasn't exactly a corporate ship. After some years of not being available when the Boss wanted, he had a chat with Biggles who advised that the only solution was a second machine which would then guarantee 100% availability. Biggles finally found a nice corporate S76 ex USA and bought it, only to get back to NSW and find the paint wasn't quite up to standard. A decision was made to repaint it, until the accountant thought it a Bad Idea as the Boss would get a tad upset. Biggles then proposed the same colour scheme wouldn't be noticed if the repaint went in as routine maintenance. Great idea, except the pin stripe scheme doubled the overall cost: peanuts to a man of substance though
Moving on, as a corporate S76 it came with a beaut cabin complete with captain's chairs, credenza, etc all gold plated. KP, however, always flew in the front left seat and soon took great exception to the hired help sitting in luxurious splendor so he had the cabin converted to four seat rows as in the other machine. Nick then put castors on one of the captains chairs and had a $50k office chair out of the exercise
They also used to hire a Bristow S76 every northern summer for the polo circuit out of UK, until Nick had an engine failure with KP on board. So they then bought a
third S76 which was kept in the UK and flown every two weeks, ready for Biggles to fly when the Boss was in Europe. Nick also kept some American sports car in the hangar, no wonder he and KP were great mates and Nick donated a kidney to him when KP got a bit crook
At some stage the Oz machine was upgraded to an S76B for better S/E performance and (I think) the backup was moved on. They also had a Soloy Bell 47 which was used for paint ball games, and IIRC a 205 kept in the NT for pig hunting and general wazzing around.