In April 1981 we went to LeHavre to pick up GBISZ,(me) GBTIR and GBJFL?.
Hey, I was on that trip...
When we had finished rebuilding on the docks it was quite late but we found a restaurant that unstacked enough chairs and offered us Lasagne and wine.
That evening was the highlight of the trip - they treated us fabulously.
This trip occurred on the Easter weekend in 1981 and was great fun! Because it was a holiday, there were no Customs people available to clear the aircraft and I recall it took a couple of bottles of Scotch and fast talking to resolve that issue.
A Puma destined forthe Mexican Presidential flight was sitting there when we arrived, and they were shocked when we pulled out 3 S76's and left a day later - no hanging around as two of these ships were destined for Nideria and had to be turned around immediately to meet the contract deadline.
Flying up to the LeHavre airport, when they opened the pilots door of the aircraft, all the aircraft paperwork blew away, leaving one set of charts and information for two aircraft to ferry back to Redhill. Gatwick asked what was going on, and why one aircraft was talking for both and why we weren't both communicating - there was actually another communication going on on 123.45 as one ship followed the other.
On the way over the channel, we were tasked with completeing as much of the Cof A test flight as possible to expedite the turn round and departure from Redhill. Al Tait was flying and when we selected the Hydraulics off and then back on, the caution light remained illuminated. Al turned a noticeable shade of white and said "that isn't good". We debated continuing the test and turning off the other system to see if it would restore the original system. On turning off the number two system and turning it back on - it also remained illuminated.
As the aircraft couldn't be controlled wthout hydraulics, we didn't disturb the flight controls, but frantically got into the Flight Manual to see our next course of action. It turned out that this aircraft incorporated a modification that maintained a hydraulic caution after it was activated, to ensure that you could identify the problem... I did briefly think I was going to die there - and by the tone of Al's voice, I don't think he was overly confident about the outcome either!
Got them into Redhill and off they headed to Nigeria a week or so later. These were the last S76's to be delivered at this time, as Bristow had cancelled the remaining orders after the loss in Aberdeen. I seem to recall more showing up later though (anyone?).
I actually have some pretty good pictures of that trip, if I can just find them...