China order 123 Airbus helicopters
 

China: 123 Airbus helicopters ordered.
I bet the sales team are happy :D

Three Chinese operators order 123 Airbus helicopters over 5 years | Helihub - the Helicopter Industry Data Source

edited - the team ;)

sales woman :p

http://www.shephardmedia.com/static/...e/3ef5ca3a.jpg

I/C

What a waste.
One of each type should be enough to copy it.

SLB

Took me a while to understand your message. On a more serious note, this is a very good indication that China is going in the right direction as far as business ethics is concerned. It is also a great news for chopper boys. It is a huge country and many places are great for Heli ops.

Looking at how they hire foreign pilots for their airlines, they will most definitely start off with hiring experienced foreign helicopter pilots and limit co-pilots to Chinese nationals. The next 10 years will see some increase in demand for heli pilots in China. Start learning Mandarin, boys.

123 helicopters over five years is about 500 pilots. About 100 leave the PLA every year and there are about 50 pilots a year under training.
The helicopters they are describing are at the Commercial Pilots level and all those exams are in Mandarin. To take them you have to be sponsored by your employer and I cannot see a Chinese helicopter company at that level giving foreign pilots, with all the problems that causes, precedence over their own nationals.
The airlines are different. They have had an incredible expansion in the last decade or so and they needed foreign captains to crew all the aircraft they had ordered.

Not so in the rotary world.

Keep your CVs flowing.

Fareastdriver,

I opine that this is just the beginning of the helicopter industry in China. It is a huge country with a lot of potential and a largely under developed industry.

I do agree that for the airlines industry, since most of them require international routes and ICAO standards, foreign pilots are desired. But in a terms of expertise and knowledge transfer, there still is a value for foreign pilots. I was once told by a Chinese friend that as China develops, more 'enlightened' Chinese company owners realise that it is important to infuse foreigners for their experiences. She also said that although China's populace is huge, the 'law of average' doesn't really work because of their education system and their traditional norms of compliance. In simple terms, they have a large population of 'mediocre' and low percentage of 'talents'.

Back to this topic, I still think that there are some openings for foreign talents in these companies, perhaps beyond just pilots.

They've already got their 'own' Squirrel. It was copied back in the '90s:

Changhe Z-11 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://lh3.google.com/cuteftpster/Ry...0/image001.jpg

Stanley,
I did give the issue some thoughts and I fully admit my posting was a "shoot from the hip" and meant as a joke.
However to continue you more serious note:
My joke originates from my (subconsious?) feelings/image I have about the way Chinese used to conduct in their business/industry.

You are right this deal might be a sign of better business ethics and i fully hope you are right.
It is a wonderfull deal for Airbus and it will give them a strong foothold and a basic workload for service centers etc.

However i think it might go as it went with the shipbuilding business.
China an Korea first took over all easy big tonnage shipbuilding and now they are venturing into the more complex ships as well.
Although i (as a European shipbuilding engineer) may not like it, it is just the way things go.

I saw you posted this news also in the thread "Rotary jobs 2014" as you expect extra jobs for non-Chinese pilots and engineers. FarEastDriver already replied this will not be the case. And since your post on Rotary jobs i have already seen 2 other posts about (other) supposed Chinese jobs which do not materialise.

The 123 aircraft deal may initially lead to some extra jobs for some foreign pilots and engineers in service centres etc. But i think you have to realize China is big and still fairly closed. They will quickly be able to be self supporting in labour.
After a while there will be Chinese pilots who think there are greener pasteures outside their country and start competing on the already crowded job market outside China.

In complete open and comparable economies one will see that the percentage of foreigners will be equal everywhere and only the people who like to do so for personal reasons will work in other countries. I think that will take long time to come and we are to expect the Chinese pilots will be coming our way.

Same for Chinese helicopters although it will take somewhat longer. I expect the Russian helis will be coming earlier but that is another thread.

Meanwhile we (in Europe) will have to focus on what we can do better than China.
For instance upgrading brand new Chinese oil rigs up to European requirements.
Which i do now for a living.

SLB