I have heard it's real common for a freshly transitioned pilot to mix the two up
and
There have been many inadvertent 76 float deployments, probably hundreds over the years
I'm afraid I don't understand the troubles you good folk had with the 76. All our first officers were provided by a contractor (different employer to the helo owner and captain employer) and they had the bare five hour endorsement, many had a bare minimum of hours, some with the license signature still wet, because there was no progression available for them the average length of employment with us was eighteen months, so we had a constant stream of first officers going through, none ever punched off the floats. As I said previously, we never ever had a float deployment. Confused.
