HELICOPTER www.helicopterlife.com Autumn 2013 / £3.99 LIFE including gyroplanes HELICOPTER LIFE is the HIGH LIFE HELICOPTER AuTumn 2013 LIFE COVER STORY Flight Show & Tell Guide 4 Rotorway Aviation shows and conferences. Roughnecks 32 Georgina Hunter-Jones The Editor’s Letter 5 learns to fly the Rotorway helicopter, Aerial Forum 6 & 7 thanks to the support Canadian Chinooks of the Roughnecks. Letters to the Editor 10 Flying Crackers 8 & 9 Helicopter Makeover Steven Swatton 40 Helicopter Business has his 1980 Bell 206 The business of heli - JetRanger re-painted copter companies 12 and revamped by - Stimulation and Simon Edmondson at loans Thruxton. Merline casts a spell Little Nellie Bows @ DSEI 46 Out Gerald Cheyne G Hunter-Jones 14 visits the dfence show Looks back at the look and hears the latest on and creative life of the Merlin and Ken Wallis who died Wildcat. on 1st September 2013 aged 97. German Ghosts Aerial Peepers Tommaso Muntforti 52 G Hunter-Jones, celebrates the life and on the continuing 24 passing of the implementation of the German F-4 National Police Air Phantoms Service and what it means. Book Reviews 58 CAA Legislation changes 59 HeliTech G Hunter-Jones 26 RNAS Yeovilton Ian Turner 62 examines the show to see how the new site Accident Reports 64 works for HeliTech 2013. House & Helicopter 66 HELICOPTER LIFE , Autumn 2013 3 S how & T ell G uide HELICOPTER 24 February - 27 February 2014 LIFE HELIExPO Anaheim, California, USA AuTumn 2013 http://www.rotor.com 13 March - 16 March 2014 HON. EDITORIAL BOARD AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIx Captain Eric Brown, CBE, RN Melbourne, Australia The Lord Glenarthur, DL http://www.grandprix.com.au Jennifer Murray Michael J. H. Smith 9 April - 12 April 2014 AEROFRIEDRICHSHAFEN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / PILOT Lake Constance, Germany Georgina Hunter-Jones [email protected] http://www.aero-expo.com CREATIVE DIRECTORS [email protected] 22 May - 24 May 2014 HELIRUSSIA COPY EDITORS Evangeline Hunter-Jones, JP Gerald Cheyne Crocus Forum, Moscow www.helirussia.ru/en/index.html?src=englishlink‎ CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Arjan Dijksterhuis, Simon Edmondson, Tommaso Montforti, Ian Turner, Gerald 30 May - 1 June 2014 Cheyne, Russian Helicopters, Peter Foster, AEROExPO Stephen Swatton, John White, Sywell, Northamptonshire, UK CONTRIBUTED PHOTOGRAPHY www.expo.aero/uk/‎ Arjan Dijksterhuis, Ian Turner, Gerald Cheyne, Russian Helicopters, Peter Foster, Stephen Swatton, Simon Edmondson, Tommaso 2 June - 4 June 2014 Montforti HELIExPO UK SPECIAL THANKS TO Sywell Aerodrome, Northamptonshire, UK Dave Smith ATPL(H)IR, The Rotorway http://www.heliukexpo.com Roughnecks ADVERTISING 19 - 21 June 2014 Telephone: +44-(0)20-7430-2384, EUROPEAN HELICOPTER SHOW [email protected] Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic SUBSCRIPTIONS Go to our website or turn to page 54 http://www.eurohelishow.com [email protected] WEBSITE 14 July - 20 July 2014 www.helicopterlife.com FARNBOROUGH AIR SHOW Blog Farnborough, near London, UK. http://www.helicopterlife.blogspot.com www.farnborough.com See Helicopter Life on Facebook & Twitter 24 September - 26 September 2014 COVER PHOTOGRAPH HELITECH Rotorway Roughnecks Ian Bown flying Amsterdam, Holland GKARN. Photograph courtesy Georgina http://www.helitechevents.com Hunter-Jones HELICoPTER LIFE is published quarterly by FlyFizzi Ltd. 4 November - 6 November 2014 59 Great ormond Street DUBAI HELICOPTER SHOW London, WC 1N-3 Hz . Maydan Racecourse, Dubai Copyright © FlyFizzi Ltd. 2013. www.dubaihelicoptershow.com ISSN 1743-1042. All rights reserved. opinions expressed herein are not neces - sarily those of the pub lishers, the Editor or any of the editorial staff. Reproduction in whole or in part, in any form whatever, is strictly prohibited without specific written permission of the Editor. 4 HELICOPTER LIFE , Autumn 2013 T he e diTor ’ S l eTTer ne excellent recent develop - August, only a few weeks after they ment from the UK CAA is its had been reinstated, there was a onew online service. AS332L2 Puma crash on the North The UK CAA said: Sea. An initial investigation showed “As part of a process to improve no mechanical failures and the the way it handles official transac - AS332L2 and the EC225 were all tions, the UK Civil Aviation returned to service. Authority (CAA) will from today However, this has not satisfied the accept more applications online, unions, who are asking for a deeper including secure online payments. investigation into why the Super Pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers Puma L2 crashed, killing four people, and air traffic personnel can now and a general look at safety on the apply for a replacement licence or North Sea. The CAA has recently certificate online.” announced it will be doing a review: I consider this to be very good “The Civil Aviation Authority news, and, with any luck, means (CAA), the UK's specialist aviation looking into new avenues. In this there will be far fewer documents regulator, today announced a review issue we feature not only their new misplaced or lost, and a far speedier of offshore helicopter operations in Ansat from Kazan Helicopters, which service. Well done the CAA. the North Sea. The review will be has just received commercial certifi - The CAA has also sent out undertaken jointly with the cation, but also the new Ka-62 and, reminders to pilots that the National Norwegian CAA and the European on a smaller scale, the first flight of Licences will no longer be valid for Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Berkut VL. of the coming years most aviation from 8th April 2014. advised by a panel of independent there will continue to be more and “The UK Civil Aviation Authority experts. It will study current opera - more from Russia, and it looks to be ...reminds holders of ‘national’ pilot tions, previous incidents and acci - innovative. licences of the need to convert to a dents and offshore helicopter flying Finally, our cover story is about the European equivalent by 8 April 2014 in other countries to make recom - Rotorway kit helicopter. This is cur - to maintain their current flying privi - mendations aimed at improving the rently the only kit helicopter certified leges. The deadline affects all com - safety of offshore flying.” by the UK CAA to fly in the United mercial and private pilots holding a As well as changes and updates to Kingdom, although there are moves to valid non-JAR licence (sometimes legislation, this issue looks at the increase the types available. I am per - also referred to as a CAA licence), HeliTech conference and show move sonally interested in the Rotorway as I which would have been issued before from Duxford to the Excel Centre in have been asked to become a January 2000. With only six months London. Rotorway examiner. To do this I need to go to arrange the switch over, the This move was apparently made to fly 15 hours and pass a test with CAA said it was concerned some after pressure from the European another examiner. I will let you know pilots would be left with invalid Helicopter Association, who felt that how these flights go and how success - licences if they failed to meet the it needed to be a more international ful the Rotorway is as an examining deadline. Flight instructors, in partic - show to reflect the business needs of platform in future issues. However, ular, could be caught out and face the majority of the participants, many one thing that has already become disruption to their training sched - of whom were, naturally, outside the very clear is how much Rotorway ules.” UK. It probably also reflects the owners and pilots value their There are exceptions to this, changing position of the UK in the machines, and how much they enjoy t s including older aircraft, kit built heli - helicopter industry, which is no r flying them. u h copters and gyrocopters, which longer the major player it was in the g n o L remain with the national authority. early years of helicopter aviation. n i v This summer has been much busier If the UK has lost its position in e K h than in the last few years both in the the helicopter market, Russia has P a r g industry generally, and in the flying gained status and growth in its place. o t o schools. However, at the end of Russian Helicopters are constantly h P HELICOPTER LIFE , Autumn 2013 5 A eriAl F orum DnD issues fact sheet on Chinook helicopter acquisition s part of the Government's commitment to industry from this procurement. Boeing is currently on strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces track to meet its commitments. A(CAF), the Department of National Defence This procurement project remains both on time and (DND) is acquiring 15 advanced, multi-mission, medium within budget since the contract was signed with Boeing to heavy-lift helicopters, or more specifically the in 2009. Canadian version of the F-model Chinook (also known Projected Costing as CH-147F). This will continue to position the CAF as a The total estimated cost for acquisition and in-service first-class, modern, flexible force capable of defending support for the Medium-to-Heavy Lift Helicopter Canada and Canadian interests well into the future. Program is CAN$5 billion. The breakdown is The purchase of this fleet of 15 aircraft meets our mil - as follows: itary's requirements and enables the CAF to project itself The total project acquisition cost is estimated at effectively across Canada and abroad. CAN$2.3 billion, which includes the 15 helicopters, in- The Canadian CH-147F Chinook represents a new service support set-up, equipment procured directly from capability for the CAF that will enhance its ability to the U.S. government (Foreign Military Sales cases) new operate in remote and isolated areas and increase its infrastructure in Petawawa, project management costs, capacity to respond to a wide variety of humanitarian and a complete maintenance and aircrew training pro - emergencies across the continent, such as fires, floods, gram, including simulation devices and courseware.