I arrived at 06.00 hrs for the 07.00 take off. My co-pilot did all the planning and then I went to the line office to sign out the aircraft. B-7955 was emblazoned on the tech log. Over the weekend? I should coco. But you couldn’t argue against it, it was all there in writing. I queried as to why it was suddenly registered. They (the CAAC registration authority) forgot to tell us. They had approved it two weeks ago. What about the temporary registration? Different department, we will tell them later. The aircraft was a honey. Smooth, precise and a joy to fly. When we arrived offshore we found that the deck crews had no trouble with airstair doors and the deck times were the same as normal.
We were based on the Nan Hai Fa Xian, an FPSO; (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) ship which was a converted tanker. It was registered in Panama and had an Italian officered crew. I had a cabin on B deck just along from the officers lounge.
Meals were cooked separately from the Chinese crew and we could choose virtually what we liked. The schedule was tight. A morning shuttle at 07.00 hrs, that lasted about two hours. A midday change over for about an hour and then the evening shuttle at 19.00 which went on for another two hours. The engineers had it worse then us. The had to strap it down after the last landing, do the post and pre flights and untie it before the next morning’s tasking.
There are two ways off getting oil onshore. Where possible pipelines buried just under the sea bed is preferred and nearly all North Sea products come this way. Where that is not possible then an FPSO is used. Pipeline from any number, in this case six, platforms meet at a subsea loading buoy. The FPSO has a well in the deck just aft of the bow that goes straight through the hull. It positions itself ever the buoy and the buoy is then raised to fit inside the well on the ship. Everything is connected up and all the production from the platforms arrives on the ship. There it is processed to make it transportable by tanker.
About every six or seven days the Fa Xian would offload to a tanker. A specialist marine captain known as the mooring master would be flown out from Shekou. He and his crew would then be winched on to the tanker, supervise the mooring to the Fa Xian and stay on the bridge during the transfer process, sometimes ten or twelve hours. When the tanked had released and was on the way to wherever we would winch him and his team off the tanker and take them home. On this picture the tanker is moored to the Fa Xian. The tug pulling the stern does it all the time to keep the tanker in tension so that they do not drift together. The other tug is taking the export pipe to the tanker.
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There wasn’t a lot to do when not flying. The TVs were all set for the Chinese crew and the Italians seemed to hibernate in their cabins. There was, however, a massive bonus. In the galley them was a soft ice cream machine with an unlimited supply of paper cups and plastic spoons. Every time we landed on to refuel I would leave the co-pilot to it and wizz down to the galley and bring up an armful of ice cream. The Chinese aren’t fond of ice cream so I would have the whole lot to myself. There wasn’t any alcohol but I had a suspicion that the Italians had a hidden supply of wine.
The problem with FPSOs and the Fa Xian in particular is that they are always pointing into the wind as they weathercock around the buoy. In fresh breezes and above this means that you get all the turbulence from the superstructure and in the Fa Xians case the twin funnels. In certain cases you would just drop at the twenty foot level and you would wait until the rotors ground cushion effect stopped you slamming into the deck. You could, as the 332 is stressed for 5m/sec (900ft/min) landings, accept quite a thump and believe me sometimes you did.
The week soon passed and then I was back in Shekou wrapping myself around a pint of draught Tiger.
B-7955 only did a couple of more weeks in the offshore contract. Then it went into the hangar and a team from the factory tore it apart and rebuilt it as an offshore aircraft with plug doors, nineteen seats and soft lining. I don't know what happened to the original kit; probably part exchanged to go in another one.