Pilot for the Queen
 

Who's up for this recently advertised job.

Who cares?

the ginger bloke doesn’t !!

Three Helicopter Pilots in the family and they have to hire someone.......must be some baggage handling involved I reckon.

SAS,

According to this “tabloid” at one point there were 5 qualified pilots ... 2 have recently been pretty much fired from any Royal duties, one is no longer allowed to drive a car let alone fly a helicopter so having lost 3 pilots in 12 months it’s probably the reason they are looking to hire. That aside are any of them type certified?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-new...t-even-7264067

The link is from 2016...

Hence the wording of the sentence.

at one point there were

My mistake. :ugh:

Didn’t some enthusiastic pilots bend the gear on Her 76 a few years ago practising some high hover engine failures?

Same as some Bristow pilots on a 212 in Baidoa? (Not looking at you, SASless)

They did that in the real aircraft? Employer too strapped for sim sessions?

It was about 15 years ago, in a C+. The RTO wasn't the only company to do so. At the time there was no available, fully certified C+ simulator so there was no choice.

C+ is a variant, once the differences training carried out, any certified a/c or sim should suffice I should have thought. A standard hover engines off in a S76 should be fairly benign; why risk doing it high (if it was so)?

I have no reason to state anything other than the way it was and btw, the incident referred to didn't occur during "standard hover engines off" training; it was during OEI training. When the C+ first came into service, the cockpit layout and engine control systems were totally different from previous variants (I also flew the A+ and the C and latterly the B). There is now (thankfully) no need to carry out OEI training for the C+ and C++ in the actual aircraft because there are certified simulators which are sufficiently representative. From personal experience, the published short field takeoff technique for the C+ was tricky even in ideal circumstances and uncomfortable for the passengers. In nil wind, or "light and variable" wind conditions it was marginal. I personally had an "interesting" experience during OEI training on the C+, thankfully without bending anything. Others weren't quite so lucky.

I was picking up on references from earlier posts. Thanks for the more complete picture Shy.

One thing the couple of S76 variants I have flown seem to have in common was a precipitous energy profile.

Knowing the Operator in question....if the Customer was not paying for the Sim Training under the Terms of the Contract.....then it was no fun trip off to FSI at the Bell Plant in Hurst, Texas for you.

Accepting (or is it excepting?) Shy’s comments about the context, skimping on a training budget is just fathomless given the money and risks involved.

Are you aware of the training budgets? And where they take place?

Comment in response to SAS”s post.

I think It’s one of those jobs that sounds great at first thought then becomes worse the more you look into it

Two points :
1. Whilst I am a strong advocate of the values of simulator training - greater scope for emergencies and malfunctions, ability to freeze, rebrief and retry to mention but a couple, we should guard against forcing ourselves down the road of complete reliance on the simulator for purely commercial reasons. In the specific case of the S76 vertical procedures, with the exception of the Bristow S76 simulator in Aberdeen, simulator profile models are mostly unable to reproduce accurately the performance of the aircraft during these exercises. Consideration should be given to allowing the aircraft to be used under closely controlled conditions to give real time handling experience, perhaps on an alternate check basis. It may already be too late as oil companies are unwilling to agree to any increased risk to their allocated aircraft.
2. The Queen`s Flight job has to be the pinnacle of the corporate sector, certainly in the UK - best aircraft. best maintenance, to the minute scheduling ( no waiting in cold wet fields waiting for inebriated passengers who turn up late) someone to meet you at each landing site with on the spot weather reporting, fuel on hand whenever you want it, what`s not to like ? Perhaps a few grand on the salary would go down well. :

Hardly. 20yo airframes based on 40yo technology, with avionics and ergonomics which are at least 2 generations old.

totally agree. Time for her maj to switch sides. See if she can borrow the papal copter. She’d prefer the cabin space, knowing she’s not sitting on the fuel tanks and the superior range and OEI performance. The 76 was the best in its day. Time to move on.

i would disagree as the S76 is IMO a career cul-de-sac

I see STARS, a nearby EMS operator, is replacing their 6 year old 139 fleet with new Airbus H145. Fit for a queen?
Also Ornge tried bailing out of their 139 EMS fleet but timed it at the bottom of the market where they couldn’t even get 412 prices, so they were stuck with them. So what type isn’t a “career cul-de-sac” these days? I hear 225 demand is improving.

Sorta hard for it to get worse ain't it?:ouch:

off to the tower with you

It is widely reported that Her Majesty is not a big fan of helicopter travel, would the monarch-in-waiting, with a love(?) of flying, push for a replacement?...of the aircraft:)

mjb

TQHF have relatively recently purchased a second S76C++ so doubt they'll be changing any time soon...they now have G-XXEB and G-XXED (formerly G-URSA, but now in TQHF livery)

h14

In the North Sea, yes.

The rest of the world doesn’t seem so reticent though