A long time ago we enjoyed the presence of a very senior former officer as Chief Pilot. He was big on checklists and had inherited a fine set of binoculars from his predecessor. By gosh he used them for nefarious purposes, and I found myself in his office, binoculars in the middle of his desk facing me, and listening to him say “ I have noticed that you don’t use a checklist “. Well he was right. Had me there. Naturally his advocation for same had been talked about. Though I’d been there only six years at that point, I figured it was up to me, seeing as I knew no one else had been queried, and I responded: “ (addressing him by rank ) in this job, if you need a checklist to get the ship started, you are in the wrong job”. It was a few moments before the checklist speech started.
This earned me a place on the flight schedule with him soon after. Which led to chapter two of this story and too long to write at the moment.
The new chief came from the fixed wing side of the business and he had meritorious credentials there. He had a total of 200 hours in helicopters. It was unfortunate for all concerned.

Had a similar experience where the CP would only fly occasionally enough to be basically dangerous. Slavishly followed the checklist to the point that he should really have refuelled before going anywhere because it took so long.

Brother Dixson…. I suspect Captain Gann would look sideways at such a fellow and challenge him to prove he was an Aviator worth his Flight Pay!

Flying offshore and the engine instruments of the 76A started signalling by means of semaphore, one engine would run up, the other down in sympathy, then reverse. Identified problem engine,, throttle pulled out of governing range for trip home, then idle for landing. Maintence went with chief pilot for a one hour flight, no fault, put back on line. Bunny has another flight offshore and all was well for 40 minutes. Prior problem engine dropped to zero TQ during a cruise portion, collective dropped to contain good engine, hand was a matter of inches from the problem engine throttle to pull it to idle when it went from zero TQ to max in the blink of an eye. Snapped governor drive shaft. Was when we flew with the overspeeds pulled because of the issues they were causing.

I, and others, recently left a job because of a fixed wing CP with NO experience of helicopters whatsoever and chose to completely ignore the the head of helicopter ops altogether as if his input was not required!

SAS: email on the way with details.

Seen and replied!

Finally got some time to wash fish slime off my fingers!