Art of Flight is exactly right when he said "corporate/private is living on your wits with little or no back-up, it really takes a strong character to last in that industry."
I would not recommend this work to any pilot who is "professional" in his approach to flying, standards of airmanship will be compromised many times by commercial pressure and/or owners who are used to getting their own way and want to get there like NOW. I had several head to heads with more than one owner ..... e.g. why can't you land in fog? .... why won't you fly in cloud (in a 206L) so and so does, you are an amateur pilot .... why won't you land there, the last pilot did .... and I had more than one narrow escape in fog and low cloud when I was tasked by my company (an AOC holder) to fly as P2 in a company maintained private helicopter but with the owner's own P1. I am of the opinion that that pilot survived more through luck than skill and judgement, but he had to get the job done to please his boss and keep his extremely well paid job. My company's chief pilot had that same frame of mind when the company chairman wanted to fly, or when another private owner's aircraft operated by the company overloaded the number of passengers in his aircraft. When the question of safety was raised the answer was that the company could not criticize the owner or his pilot because otherwise they might lose the maintenance and/or pilot contracts.
I retired many years ago and in those days the CAA weren't interested in "private" helicopter operations, even when they were flown by crews employed by a company holding an AOC. I hope things have changed by now.
My advice, if you are a professional, is fly with a big company, at least you will then have the support of proper rules and, more importantly, the support of other pilots with a professional attitude to their work. In a small company pilots are afraid of losing their jobs if they don't toe the line.
My heartfelt sympathies for the crew of G-LBAL and their relatives.
Last edited by 76fan; 15th Mar 2014 at 22:27.