New Robinson arrived in Papua New Guinea
 

Observed at the shipping docks in Lae, yesterday 18th Nov was a new Robinson with factory test registration N90815 using callsign RPC5138

Factory test registration and factory test callsign;

Seen flying on Friday 19th Nov around Lae area. If this is an import it will have been a while since the last Robinson operated in PNG.

What could possibly go wrong?

Airborne Logistics in Port Moresby operated Robinson R44, P2-ZWT up until Feb 2020, then exported.

Frabelle Fishing Co. operated Robinson R44, RP-C5058 until it crashed in a river near Lae in May 2015

New Tribes Missions (Ethnos360 Aviation) have a new R66 due in country soon to replace an aging Bell 206, apparently one of three new machines. from their web site:- .McNeal, AZ, October 25, 2021 – The crane was the big attraction. Who doesn’t love to see heavy equipment at work, making the difficult look so easy? With slow and steady movements, the crane raised the orange shipping container onto a tractor-trailer. Inside that container? The first Robinson R66 helicopter bound for Papua New Guinea. You trusted God with us to supply the R66 and to outfit it for field service. You prayed for our technicians as they figured out the tricky HF radio installation. Now we trust God to make another difficult thing easy. With shipping lines so clogged with idle cargo ships at the docks, some estimate it will take six to eight months to travel the 7,277 miles to the dock at Lae, Papua New Guinea.

There's a YouTube channel - Missionary Bush Pilot ( https://www.youtube.com/c/MissionarybushPilot ) - and Ryan is off to get trained up to fly helicopters sometime in the near future... I guess this will be his steed.

Worth a watch for lots of reasons, including his weather awareness and decision making. And the scenery!

A brand new pilot let loose in PNG - yeah, nothing could go wrong with that.

Ryan has 2000+ hours Kodiak time in PNG. His helicopter training starts next summer in the US. I read that Ethnos360 Aviation were short 10 helicopter pilots. If 3 x R66 go to PNG to replace 1 x 206L they only have to prang two of them to be back at square one. Most of their work is at 5000' and below, only the en-route stuff is higher than that. He'll be right.

He cooks up a lot of drama as click bait for his YouTube channel. I haven't seen any weather in any of his video's that would be too much concern for a PNG helicopter pilot. Although he does do some IMC to get from A to B that a VFR helicopter pilot would find some other way. If he tries IFR in the R66 would be interesting.