Originally Posted by
Saint Jack
It would appear that nothing much has changed with this company - except the name and the helicopters - since the days of Parashar and Wakeford...
Actually they have evolved considerably in the operational context since those days, with basically only 2 major senior-management changes over that long time. It used to be somewhat "agricultural", single pilot, then 2-pilot although on occasion if short on crew they would put a non-pilot staff member up front to make it look like they had 2 pilots. I can't imagine them doing that these days on the AW139. Now it is more "regimented" with formal training and induction processes, check-lists, standards that must be met, simulator training and the rest of it.
Sure, culturally it's pretty much the same pony it's always been, but operationally very different than the early days.
To their credit it's a pretty safe operation. Apart from the 222 that went over the cliff at Coloane, and the 76 that rolled over in the hangar, they've only ever dropped one helicopter in the tide in probably several hundred thousand flight hours over 20 years. And the flight crew pulled that one off pretty good.