Originally Posted by
milktrip
You mention the 212, I'm hoping to build a couple of these too. In particular G-BALZ in early bristows livery. Some info on the interior of the 212's would be handy
. There are loads of photos available but trying to determine what the seating type and seating arrangement were has proven difficult. When in operation in the UK North Sea would the 212 (specifically G-BALZ) have canvas bench seating with 4 facing aft, another 4 facing front and 2 either side, just next to the doors, facing out wards. Or similar seating arrangement but with more substantial and comfier looking seats with head rests?
BEAS are another operator I was looking into but was quite interested in the alouette II operated by them but for the forestry spreading in the late 60's early 70's. again, plenty to keep me occupied...
Thanks and regards
Aaron
BALZ was operated in the Brent Field by BEAS, so the North Sea scheme would be the Bristow one for 1977 with B.E.A.S. on the tailboom instead of Bristow.
Normal fit for the 4 BEAS 212s were the normal 4 aft facing/5 fwd facing bench seats in the normal Bell grey with a 20usg tank in the port well with two cushion seats, and either another 20usg tank in the starboard well with seats, or a 90usg tank with (obviously) no seats. Initially we had a life raft jammed under the fwd bench seats, but later this was acknowledged to be virtually useless so a Heath Robinson fix had it lashed with a seat belt to the starboard door ahead of the sliding door. In this configuration the liferaft (they all had a yellow cover) was sitting on end and visible through the small window that you can see in the middle of the photo.
Sometimes we had two 90 gallon tanks and only 9 pax seats, but very rarely. This photo of BALZ has the 90usg in the stbd well and the modified tailboom paint job:
