They can do that whilst they are cleaning the ash trays.

Food in , Food out?
 

Good Sunday Morning.
It sounds to me the need to put food in on some of these operations was taken care of in a practical way.
I have a few 1000 hrs on Beech 200 that was certified for Single Pilot operation, no toilet. 7 hrs range!
It had a pee tube under the Cpt seat mind You.
I , fortunately have Long Haule Blader and never had to use it.
( We operated less then 2 hrs generally and with 2 crew.)
Had some Pax in an awfull hurry at destination some times , mind You.

Regards
Cpt B

Someone hasn’t understood that ‘utility’ or ‘aerial work’ ops are Commercial. Indeed you won’t find anyone without a CPL or ATPL on the fireline be it flying a Helitack or a Firebird.

And where you get the idea that 12 hour flying (or duty) days are long gone indicates that you are leading a very sheltered aviation life. :rolleyes:

blimey how else would I keep my racing snake shape on 12 hour days ?

If asked nicely I think 212man has a photo taken during a helo ferry flight to Africa showing inflight cuisine as it should be.

The glass of fine French Wine and cloth serviette was the final touches weren't they?

Indeed (been off my laptop a couple of days so slow to upload)!

Rig meals are all very well but I far prefer Air France Catering - Gravlax starter (on the fork), game terrine for main and a cheese board, all washed down with a nice Cote d 'Rhone which they kindly opened in advance..... :ok:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cfddd6f532.jpg


(PS. Just in case anybody is stupid enough to think we actually drank it in flight - no we did not, we waited until the end of the second leg in our hotel in Tangier and enjoyed it there. You can never be sure these days how easily outraged people can be!)

Dang! There I was thinking it was Forcardos Fare!

Yonks ago I flew a Puma HC1 to Rome for a kind of liaison visit. I think that the Italian Air Force was expecting somebody more important than a flight lieutenant because the bemedalled welcoming party evaporated. However the rest gave us a good time in Rome.

On the return trip we had a lunch box provided for us. We cruised up the west of Italy and just before crossing into France we opened up the box. There was a superb selection of rolls and cheeses plus a bottle of Chianti.

We thought about it for a moment:

When in Rome.........................................

The good old days of two squares from platforms and two packs of twenty per pilot per rotation, the best breakfast was the Fulmar and the best food all round was from the Asian galley on the DB102.

And despite the warnings on the packets smoking saves lives:

AS332 Aberdeen to the Basin , 3000' outbound on top of the usual January low stratus level, I was in the P2 seat doing the paperwork, P1 passed me a cigarette as I was about to start the power assurance. Sliding window open, the smoke and ash went nicely out and no-one was much the wiser. Cigarette ended roughly at the same time as the PA. I flicked the stub out of the window and saw what looked like a HISL, but could'nt see an aircraft in the glare, I looked in blinked and looked out again. A fisheries protection Cessna was about to come through my window, I yelled "PULL!" and P1 yanked the cyclic back, we vaulted over the Cessna and missed him by not a lot. If I hadn't had that cigarette and thrown the stub out at that moment I'm pretty sure we would have hit, ergo, smoking saves lives (well thats one of my many excuses for never giving it up)

I also loved the chemical analysis of a liquid that had buggered the SAS on an S61, The full spectro of tea was quite something to see.

SND

Rig meals were the primary sustenance for the commuting crews, in fact if they didn't provide this food, there is a good chance they might have starved to death. Of course the truly frugal, not only survived on rig meals during the work day, but took any remaining food back to the company house and either ate it or froze it for future use!

You know who you are!

One used to take his rig meals home, work out how much it would cost, then deduct it from his missus's housekeeping.

My dog loved rig meals. Beef, chicken, bacon and eggs, salad with picked onion, it didn't matter. Any rig meal was demolished instantaneously and we used to feed him pretty well also.

Umm, I flew about 30 12-hour days last summer.

Then you really ought to get a life bud! 12 hours is just too much.

I forget....there is life outside Blighty?

I'll try to keep this brief. Tasked with a flight out of XXXX to the furthest rig we serviced at the time, myself and another pilot had to fly initially to YYYY to pick up a much needed pump seal. It was winter. It was crap weather. It was night. We flew to YYYY, picked up the seal, flew up to the rig where the helideck team met us with two huge trays of roast dinner. It was late at night. We had finished the meals by the time we got back to XXXX about 4 hours later, thinking that was a fun old evening. (sarcasm). Shutting down the aircraft and climbing out for the night, I noticed the seal still in the envelope in the cockpit. Not one person asked about that seal and nothing was ever said. :)

Oh and if any of you ever flew offshore in Gulf of Thailand, I'm pretty certain you've eaten a tuna sandwich many times. :)

Oh and if any of you ever flew offshore in Gulf of Thailand, I'm pretty certain you've eaten a tuna sandwich many times. :)[/QUOTE]

They were awesome off Malaysia, those or nasi lemak for breakfast.

SND

Have not seen fag ash on the floor of a North sea helicopter for 20 years. I remember Bonds chief pilot pulling the ashtrays out of any 105 he flew in prior to launching them into the farmers field at Strubby As to eating in the cockpit today just look under the crew seats. You could grow spuds under some of them.
Now and then a pilot complains. More than happy to show him where we keep the vacuum cleaner.

For 139 pilots the MCDU screens are not sealed and therefore make poor stands for coffee cups. Spill anything there and it rapidly goes into the expensive bits.

I retired from Bristows twenty years ago. With me went the best airfield homing aid--a trail of dog ends leading to the runway.

You had some fierce competition.....I recall a couple of old timers that set the standard.

One, who always wore the same dark blue suit, maintained an appearance that looked like he used his suit coat front for an ash tray.....and the other from Down Under could maintain an ash on his fag that completely defied gravity and the inability of the Engineers to track rotors.

EATING EN ROUTE
 

I'm surprised to hear it's considered to be a problem, it certainly wasn't in my day, 1975-1999. Whether it was five hour plus flights in the Chinook or shuttling around the Leman/Indie in 61's or 76's, a good scran was always high on the priority list. The Magnus used to do a smashing fried breakfast and we had one co-pilot who could finish his by the top of the climb on the way home.

So true Shag!

There was a major upset on the S76A when they introduced the second dinghy. It was installed against the captains door and it blocked the car type ash tray assembly that was built in. I had to go to Halfords and buy a stick on car ash tray to keep me going.

I was bringing a S76A GBJVZ from Antwerp to Redhill. It was a very early S76 with a small centre consol and old fashioned instruments and OBS which didn't work. As the weather was a bit iffy I flew back in formation with Avgas who was flying the other fully equipped one.

The normal place where I put my fags and lighter was not available to I tucked them against a ledge which had a blanking plate for the Loran or something. All went well until it was time to light up and my lighter wasn't there. Fingers found a big gap under the blanking plate which my lighter had dived in to.

We had a little screwdriver gismo around our necks to undo the Zeus fasteners on the cowling so I eased out of the formation a bit and removed the plate. There was my lighter nestled amongst all the cockpit's electronics' wiring.

I recovered it and at that point my maps migrated off the left hand seat down onto the floor by the collective. I needed my maps in case we got separated so I eased out to about four spans and did the old Bristol Sycamore trick when changing pilots.

I unstrapped, eased myself up and sat on the centre consol. swung my legs into the port footwell and pushed myself over into the left seat. I recovered my maps and reversed the procedure to get back again.

The aircraft did exactly what it was told; kept perfect formation.

Coming into Gatwick it was an ILS and my kit didn't work. I cleared it with ATC so I did a formation ILS (1/2 span) on Avgas and we broke cloud at about 600ft.

It took me back to my stovie days when we did formation GCAs on Bingo fuel.

Odd how your formation flying skills pick up at those kinds of times.....along with some severe muscle strain in the vicinity of your nether regions.

That ended up being my favourite S-76, it was the original North Denes aircraft, light and still had fuel pressure gauges for years!

The only one with four proper doors.