Importing the first of type helicopter into Australia always has problems, especially if the helicopter is a brand new type in the world. In 1978 Okanagan Helicopters in Exmouth became the second world operator of the Sikorsky 76 by 1 week, Air Logistics being the first.
6 of us were recruited to fly the 76, 3 as captains & 3 as co-pilots. The senior pilot went to the states for ground school along with the chief engineer. A Sikorsky instructor came to Perth to run a 2 week ground school; may have been longer.
When the 2 S76s arrived in Exmouth, a Sikorsky factory pilot was sent to endorse 7 of us. Also 4 factory engineers came to help our engineers & to do the various mods that seemed to turn up every week! Sikorsky left 1 engineer on site to assist for at least 2 years. Being serial number 3, numerous mods were done for the next few years.
The command endorsement was 5 hours then I think plus we all did our class 1 instrument rating, so by the time we flew off to the oil rig, some 175 miles away, we had about 20 hours each on type! With careful monitoring there were no pilot error incidents & DCA were helpful throughout.
I can imagine how hard it must have been for Richard Green as he had nowhere to look for help plus we flew 80 hours a month & so gained experience quickly compared to his 100 hours a year.
It's a tragic end for 3 enthusiastic people but as Ned Kelly is supposed to have said "such is life".