Isle of Scilly Shuttle - New Operator
 

Just wondering if anyone knows who the new operator is thats going to be doing the Isle of Sicily shuttle operation with 139s.

Thanks for your assistance.

Someone who can afford to lose lots of money!

Spelling?
 

Sicily? Do you mean Isles of Scilly?

Sorry yes thats what I meant - Didn't check auto correct first.

Nothing happening at the moment as the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company have thrown a legal spanner in the works.

Seems like someone isn't happy with their monopoly being threatened....

Indeed https://twitter.com/PzHeliport/statu...42846649982976

Having been clobbered by a huge amount of money for unexpected work on their replacement freight vessel (the vessel - "Mali Rose" - is currently in dry dock in PZ having it's bow repaired after a parking prang) the last thing that the steamship company wants is competition eating into their profits.
Many of us here welcome the appearance of the helicopter again. Anything's better than rocking and rolling across on the good ship Scillonian III.

Nice idea but is there really enough profit (if any) in this proposal using a 139?

The 61 was bought and paid for and had the capacity to carry 19 pax and decent amount of bags but the 139 is expensive to buy/lease and just as costly to operate. You can squeeze 12 with light luggage into one of these so significantly less.

well the plan is for 8-10 million facility plus 2 139s in 15 seat config.

If they have memories of the 61 and think this will be comparable it will certainly be interesting.

Wow, 15 pax in a 139 plus holiday luggage, that’ll be cosy.

its cosy in 12 as well no idea how you will get the holiday luggage in .

The Steamship Company's aviation activities are more than a little hampered by the weather of the area. Runway threshold of 398ft means that all too often it's in cloud; Newquay is not a lot better though being further east helps somewhat.

The major advantage that any helicopter operator based at sea level in Penzance has is that they will be affected less often by the "usual" Cornish met. Insisting that the new operator uses St Just, at which the Steamship Company sets the landing fees is a very bad joke and entirely unacceptable as well.

What about using an older S92 - must be a few cheap ones out there that they could use. If they used a 61 before would a 92 work - or too expensive.

Plenty of relatively new low-mileage H225s kicking about too!

New Helicopter operator IOS
 

All 'New heliport' plans on hold due Cornwall Council 'suggesting' that the planning permission given is 'doubtful'.
I also think that the costs have escalated and there will be no 'user rights' transferable from the old site.
In essence the new location is just that NEW and would be subject to far more scrutiny for both planning and CAA licensing.
As to the actual equipment planned I suspect it would be difficult to really operate at a profit with its low payload, and diversion reserves.
The original PZ operation benefitted from its sea level location and was in the weather shadow of the west Cornwall peninsular; the very idea of operating the new service from Lands-End was quite correctly rejected due to the well know weather restrictions at St Just (who have spent a small fortune on GPS approach technology to try and deal with this).
On another tack I did hear that the dedicated S61 'EB' that served for years on the route (specially modified to allow quick turarounds) is now logging in Canada.

Lot of speculation here. The new PZ location clearly best situated and no planning or certification barriers. As to type, well AW139s now available on used /lease market and performance will allow an increased frequency and faster passage to meet passenger demand.

Having tried twice over the last summer to try to go from Newquay to St.Marys with the Twin Otters but had cancellations each time due to weather, I fear the frequency of weather issues cancelling flights on a fairly routine basis, plus the costs of running the helicopters will make it very tough indeed to make a living. A cancelled Twotter flight and Skybus automatically offer to drive you down to take the boat as an alternative and much of the time those passenger opt for that, so no need for ticket reimbursement. The heli-operator I'm assuming doesn't have a boat back-up option, so anyone on a day trip to say Tresco will just cancel and want their money back.

More problems.

https://www.piratefm.co.uk/news/late...-is-suspended/

IOS really are getting themselves in the mire.
Helicopter service suspended.
Mali Rose still not operational causing them to have to keep paying to lease Gry Martha.
They must be leaking money like a nationalised industry.

Steamship company now saying that flights WILL go ahead on Monday. All very confusing.

All the boxes Not Ticked
 

This is really a paperwork exercise because of it being a Scheduled service, not that i see it can affect anything other than they may be restricted to making 'approaches' to the runway in use as opposed to direct to the pad.
Meanwhile the real 'Island Helicopter Battle' is being rerun at Cornwall Council planning dept with the consultation period now in play for the New Heliport at Penzance. The new application has had thousands of letters of support but will not be a smooth ride in the system as the location will have to contend with far more 'environmental' issues than the original site due to the area having been built up over the years. The ISSC Heli service to the Isles is somewhat restricted due to Tresco NOT being an option and the ISSC have certainly lost the pr battle over all this as their ship service is not really cutting it at present. The other big loser since the demise of the original service from the old heliport ceased is Penzance itself which has seen yet another supermarket drain trade away from the town centre and also the substantial spin off from the long standing Heliport operation that worked very well from its original location.

The Isles of Scilly council, which operates the airport on St Mary’s, informed the steamship company last week that it would not let the new helicopter service begin because the required environmental assessments had not been carried out. Concerns had been raised over nesting birds including shags and lesser black backed gulls.

Determined that the launch should go ahead as planned, the flight on Monday was designated as a charter rather than a scheduled flight. It meant the helicopter took off a little later than planned and had to touch down on the grassy fringe of the airport rather than on asphalt.

The designation also meant passengers were ushered through a wooden farm-style gate, while luggage was handed over a wire fence. But the passengers agreed that it added to the charm of the journey.

Islanders milling around the airport had mixed views.Lady Marian Berkeley, a councillor and resident of the island of Bryher – famed as the setting for Michael Morpurgo’s Why the Whales Came – said she would turn her back whenever the steamship helicopter appeared on the horizon.


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ys-controversy

That'll learn 'em.

Hope the pilot has more room!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On my TR course I was shown the video of them assessing the escape time from the cabin in the high-density configuration - it looked like one of those comedy vids where an impossible number of people emerge from a Mini, and not very quickly either!

If anybody's interested, here are the planning application documents ...
PA16/09346 | Proposed heliport comprising: a terminal building, hangar, emergency vehicle garage, helicopter landing pad and apron, operational equipment and apparatus, fuel storage facility, bunding and pipework, 269 staff and customer long-stay par

There's a submission from Sloane about the different operating sites here...
http://planning.cornwall.gov.uk/onli...17-3757059.pdf

It always struck me that Penzance to Scilly would be well served with a hovercraft service. Probably just over an hour outbound, and less than an hour inbound from Penzance.
Was this ever looked at as an option?

Hovercraft are all right in a placid sea but unless you have a big one like a BHT130 which holds 120 passengers the ride in any sort of sea is very uncomfortable and noisy. I used to ride the hovercraft from Shekou to Hong Kong along the Pearl River and even the wake from a ship doing five knots was enough to make you grit your teeth.

A hovercraft in the SW Approaches:) What a vomit-comet that would turn out to be.........it might get to operate for 1 or 2 days a year when the sea is flat calm.....

I reckon an Uber flying car penzance to Tresco is the way ahead!

Lands End ops permanently canned:

https://www.businesscornwall.co.uk/n...ase-operation/

Skybus would have been better to go for a bigger aircraft - ?

The 50 seater Dash 7 of Brymon was earmarked for the ISC route but was deemed too big back then when the island airport was still fledgling.
Today with the new longer hard runway they would have been real people movers and possibly even served a London direct service