To stop this thread coming off the front page.
The Saga of the Dodgy Registration.
In 1998 came the Far East crash. Stock prices were collapsing and even major international companies were having financial troubles. Imagine a group of Samsung financial directors shuffling on their knees to tell the president he cannot have his super deluxe helicopter to take him to work every morning. The company is in such dire straights that it can only afford a small one. Not too small, about the size of his limousine, and so an Aerospatiale 332L1 came on the market.
There weren’t a lot of takers for a full VIP executive helicopter for the same reasons that Samsung were selling it. However, our Chinese company bought at an absolutely giveaway, rock bottom bargain price somewhere around 50% of what it cost two years earlier. They flew it to Shenzhen and we had a look at this beautiful jewel, its form only spoiled by the air conditioner mounted on the port side.
One lowered an airstair door to enter the front cabin. Radiant beech panelling lined the walls with four sumptuous swivelling armchairs spaced evenly around. There was a drinks cabinet at hand and a telephone to address the driver with. The rear cabin had airstairs under the boom was merely set out with six club class armchairs but had, as the front did, a carpet you had to wade through. There was also a door so that the president’s needs, during the seven or eight minutes between establishing in the cruise and starting the landing profile, could be attended to.
It all had to come out. Off came the air-conditioner; out came the armchairs and seats. They had to leave the panelling as it hid the frames and stringers but the partition disappeared. Seats? We had some seats in storage there, not a full set, just fourteen, so in they went. Then it went onto the contract it was bought for, an offshore based shuttle. It was seven days out and then the aircraft would come back for maintenance and crew change. The first two weeks were done by Chinese crews but then came the requirement for a British captain. As I was on contract to the Chinese company I was fingered.
There was one problem. It was still on the South Korean register. Not having a Korean validation on my licence I politely declined; or words to that effect. On this I was backed up by the chief pilot and all the other Brits. What arrangements the Chinese crews had for flying it I didn’t know but that was their problem. This impasse lasted about three days and then the Chinese played the master stroke. They got a temporary Chinese registration for the aircraft.
I had flown aircraft with temporary registration before. I had picked up a S76 that had been shipped over from the States to Southampton. It had a temporary registration stuck on the side made up with bodge tape and it was virtually indecipherable at first glance. The weather wasn’t brilliant and I had flown it to the UK base fairly low level across the south of England. I knew the area because of my time at Odiham so as the area being used to military traffic I reasoned that that plus an unrecognisable registration which had probably peeled off would keep me fairly safe from moaners. Thus I flew along blissfully unaware that the previous US registration was emblazoned in big letters and numbers on the underside of the aircraft.
In China the allocation of aircraft identities is on a different logic than the UK. Whilst in the UK they are predominately in alphabetical order in China it is by company further divided into types. What happens is that a company is given a block of numbers which are further broken down into types. Our company had B7951 onwards for its 332s. They bought 7951&2 in the mid eighties and 7953 came along over ten years later. The temporary registration that this aircraft had bore no relation whatsoever to any recognised form of Chinese allocation.
I decided to go along with it for three reasons. The first was that I wanted to fly it. The reports on were superb. The flight from Seoul to Shenzhen was ten per cent of its total hours and it was as smooth as a baby’s bottom in the cruise. The second was covered by Chinese aviation law as I was directly employed by a Chinese company. Most of flying discipline in China is delegated to the company so if you are guilty of an infringement you are fined by the company. As they had told me to fly it it would be difficult to discipline me for flying it illegally. The third was that I had a copy of a policy that said I was worth US$1,000,000 dead.
To be continued………………………..