Wessex in NZ? Ned?

[Nigel Osborn]

Hi Ned

You seem to be the fount of all things helicopter wise in NZ!
Do you know the who, why, where,etc of the company in NZ that operate some ex-RAF Wessex?

Many thanks:confused:

[Autorotate]

From what I understand there are a couple of companies who have them here. There is Brian O'Malley in Christchurch who had a few of them, as well as some Gazelles and he was using them for logging around Nelson a couple of years back. It was one of his that went down in a ball of flame near Nelson about two years ago killing the pilot. Came to find out that it was flying only on one engine from what I understand, correct me someone if I am wrong about it having two engines.

The others have just been imported into NZ by the Ford Family Trust in Taranaki and are going to be used for logging their own properties. The way around this is the owner is a logging contractor. They buy a block of forest and then log it themselves using their own helo, therefore its not being used commercially. They had a couple of Westland Scouts that they also logged with and one of these ended up upside down on the pilot, Piers Harvey about a year ago, he was very very very lucky as ground logger pulled him away from the helo before it burst into flames.

These are the only ones I know of to date.

Ned

[John Eacott]

Logging in a Scout :ooh: :ooh:

Cor, someone is either amazingly ambitious, or amazingly skilfull.

Wonder which, and how did they go (apart from the bleeding obvious :ouch: )?

[Nigel Osborn]

John

They probably slung in the seedlings to be logged later.:O

Ned
Many thanks for that. They had 2 engines but in that climate, 1 could almost lift as much as 2. 1 engine could pull about 2950 lbs TQ & 2 only 3200 because of the transmission limit.:D

[Autorotate]

John,

Surprisingly they actually did quite well and for quite some time. I spoke to Piers Harvey, who was flying it, and he told me that it lifted logs really well but because of the stress on the tailboom attachments they had orange paint on there and every time they landed for fuel they had to inspect it to see if there were any cracks :ooh:

The only reason it crashed wasnt because of boom problems but the engine quit. :*

One operator here was also using the Scout as an ag machine for quite some time. Could lift a **** load of spray and actually proved quite profitable.

Ned

[zhishengji751]

I saw a Wessex while over in NZ for Warbirds over Wanaka.
Registration points to it being owned by Helilogging in Taranaki

cheers,
Greg

[John Eacott]

Ned,

Thanks for that: long shot, but any idea of the payloads?

Engine quit....an auto in Malta in a Wasp put me off auto's in those things for life. Talk about brick dunnies ;)

Re the Wessex, one of those unexplained mysteries was the Bristow's failures, which (IIRC) led to the pulling of the type as a civil machine (the Wx60), yet the military seemed not to have any similar problems. I guess the ex Mil 2's and V's would be operating on a restricted type certificate in UnZud ?

[SASless]

John,
Refresh my memory about the BHL Wessex problems...I was on the S-58T fleet and always got put down for that by the Wessex folks. I would have loved to fly the Wessex but discussion of HP and LP cocks raised puritanical fears. Did they ever find the one that crashed in Nigeria that was said to have disappeared? Wonder what Bristow was doing or not doing that led to their problems...were not most of the crashes in Nigeria vice other parts of the world?

[Droopy]

I don't think the Bristow Wessex crash off Yarmouth was ever resolved, and it was the unexplained nature of the crash that led to the oil companies wanting it off contract.

[reynoldsno1]

ISTR that the Bristow crash in Nigeria was due to blade delamination
The Helilogging Wessi are/were XS677 and XT606
There are 3 Scouts on the NZ register, are/were XP891, XV129 and XT694. There are also 2 civil registered Gazelles.
The accident report of the fatal crash near Motueka in Feb 01 is here (http://www.caa.govt.nz/fulltext/Fatal_accidents/HVK_Fatal.pdf)