Oh indeed we did😉! This was back in the day when people truly understood what the aircraft could do, and our engineers were not mere ‘box swappers’ - we had an utterly superb engineering team on 84, many ex NI 72Sqn, and they knew the aircraft inside-out. I would tell them what I thought I needed to get the job done, and they would ‘advise’ me. Were we exceeding aircraft published limits?, Oh you betcha, but in those days people with knowledge and experience made educated decisions to get the job done. I always ensured the entire crew was briefed and approved the plan, my rule was ‘one out, all out’.

The person breaking the rules and exceeding published limits was me. I signed for the aircraft and I held the responsibility as the Captain - but it worked every single time, and we never had an issue.I will stress that this was NEVER done for training, purely to get a life-saving Op accomplished.

In the military, on Ops we were paid to use our knowledge and judgment to get the task achieved. We did exactly that. When the system changed to rule driven automatons ruling the roost, I PVR’d. I decided that if I had to mindlessly follow rules and could not apply professional judgement to get the job done then I would do it in civvy street where I I could do that for 5 times the salary (I moved to North America)

Am I a dinosaur? Probably, and to many this may sound reckless - I get it. But we were complete professionals who truly understood our aircraft and knew what we could ask of it, in extremis, to save lives. I do not apologize for that.

I was flying the only remaining airworthy Wessex last week and we were having a discussion about Tq limits - I remember being told by the old and bold in the 80s that Bristow used to operate it to 3.8 on a regular basis.

However, life saving ops are few and far between in Cyprus, especially inland at 8000' DA (most likely firebucketing) so using 3.2A was never a 'thing' we did - its why there was a fuel jettison system on the aircraft so you could match your weight to the situation.

Did I sit committed often? Not for training but a couple of interesting night cliff jobs required it (although I still had a tricky- no NVG in those days - flyaway option).

But deliberately overtorquing the aircraft? - no. I've seen 3.8 a couple of times in NI due to inexperience (both on my part and others) but only transients.

I concur with your sentiments re automatons blindly rule following but professionalism demands that only in absolute extremis should you put the crew at increased risk by exceeding limits on the aircraft. And it should be put U/S as soon as the rescue is complete, not waived by overkeen engineers.

Maybe it’s the future unknown variables of the ‘time’ and ‘expense’ required to bring into service for a ‘broke’ Nation?

And I certainly don’t remember the LHS leaning over and pressing the torquemeter test button: “3000, 3000, 3000, all is good…..” flying away, releases test button “3100, 3000, all coming down nicely…”.

My hope is that the maintenance manuals had different limits to the Pilots' Notes, and they knew that no maintenance checks or actions were necessary. I've certainly see that with other types.

Blackhawk Lease $2M/year
 

The Malaysian 60A+ ‘out flies’ and ‘out lifts’ anything the U.K. is considering - and all for $2M each per year ;-)
https://www.janes.com/amp/lima-2023-...VI5VFp1cVMwPQ2

https://www.find-tender.service.gov....ard_contract-1

6 x 145 at over £23M each with only 3-years support - incredible use of tax payers money

The 140 million is excluding VAT!

Its the Brexit tax! 😉

Yes, I think that is reckless. You can fully understand your aircraft, but are you at the same time a load/stress/fatigue engineer? Did the manufacturer provide you with all the data to “know what you could ask of it”? Or were you just lucky you worked in a time where aircraft and their components by chance were over dimensioned? (Take a BO105 head that went from 1600kg initial design to 3700kg on a H145). If you would do the same with ANY modern aircraft, civil or military, the guy taking the aircraft after you might get killed. Lucky enough for this event exceedance monitoring has been introduced to warn the crew coming after “you”…

True. According the big red bus that was paraded around, it’s less than half a week of Brexit savings!

Only if we feel obliged to keep buying crap from the eurotrash.

Don’t you see. It’s part of the ongoing sweetener, for not being selected as 'The Preferred Bidder’ for NMH. ;)

any idea on historical utilisation in Brunei and Akro? would it be more than 300-hrs /annum/airframe, for example?

must be in Brunei. They were always flying when I was there (2005-13)

You would have thought If they were going to buy anything for Cyprus or Brunei, the obvious choice would have been one that was shortlisted for the replacement programme so they would get operational experience and be able to field test the type. And if it eventually was chosen you would have commonality.

Don't be silly, that's far too logical.

The other factor that may have come into play is if you approached the said company and said “ look your helicopter is on our shortlist for say 30 examples and we require 4 in the short term to cover Cyprus and Brunei, what is your best offer”
and bearing in mind they would then be looking at the overall contract and possibly get a foot in the door, you would imagine they would possibly get a cracking deal on a use and return if not selected. I would imagine they would possibly have been able to furnish used or demonstrators.

There was nothing wrong with the 412's they were EP's if they wanted to upgrade could have had them brought up to EPX spec for a fraction of new machines (like Canada is doing and other 412 operators are looking at), still better hot/high than a 145.

If that is their ‘best offer’ then heaven help the Tax payer!
You raise a very serious point and one I’m not convinced MOD/DSE can navigate ethically.