HELICOPTER www.helicopterlife.com LIFE SPRING 2009 / £3.99 AlternativeAlternative OscarsOscars HELICOPTER LIFEis theHIGH LIFE H Aviation Insurance Don’t risk it For competitive aviation insurance... Email: [email protected] Web: www.haywards.net Tel: +44 (0)20 7902 7800 Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority HELICOPTER Spring 2009 LIFE COVER STORY Show & Tell Guide 4 HAI HeliExpo Aviation shows and conferences. Helicopter Life 32 the production team The Editor’s Letter 5 visits the annual event, this time at Aerial Forum 6 & 10 Anaheim in Darren Litton looks at CAA and other medicals California and assesses the effects Letters to the Editor 7, 11, 15 & 39 of the recession Flying Crackers 8, 9 Bell 222 40 Captain David Warren training captain at Flying Cars! 12 Starspeed in the Gerben van Beek south of England from the Dutch looks into the his - HEMS.Life Flight tory and design of Netherlands records the Bell 222, the day Mitsubishi describes its flying delivered their prize characteristics and winner’s car to a explains why it is beach in Holland so comfortable for a pilot to fly. New Technology 16 Valerian Kiessling’s Big Dwarf 48 Helicopter Life looks at the VH-71 Presidential Rainer Herzberg Helicopter and the Pegasus PH200PJ spends a day with the owner and restorer of a Mil Mi-2 helicopter, which the owner has restored at Chandigarh Air Force Station 18 his home in a lighthouse in Germany and hears Simon Watson and about the changes he has made to the orginal Philip Camp fly out to the Manhattan Belle 54 Punjab to visit 12 Georgina Hunter- Wing of the Indian Jones visits and Air Force and flies with Topsy view their Taylor’s Helicopter heavylifting Mil Flight Services from Mi 26s in action the Downtown Manhattan Heliport Need a Repair Job 22 in their Bell 407, and Jakub Fojtik is told the story of spends time with LOM PRAHA seeing how they their enterprise restore Mil products to their former glory Having a Tea Break by Ralph Arnesen 60 Flying Circus 26 Dino Marcellino Helicopters Past and Future 62 visits many Grand Prix circuits and Book Reviews 63 talks to the owner, and employees of Accident Reports 64 Aercopter the heli - copter shuttle House & Helicopter 66 HELICOPTER LIFE,Spring 2009 3 SHOW & T ELL G UIDE 2 April - 5 April 2009 SPRING 2009 AERO FRIEDRICHSCHAFEN 2009 Friedrichshafen, HON. EDITORIAL BOARD Lake Constance, Germany Captain Eric Brown, CBE, RN Phone + 49 7541 708 404 The Lord Glenarthur, DL Fax: + 49 7541 708 2404 Jennifer Murray Email: Julia Schwägler Michael J. H. Smith Website: www.aero-expo.de Wing Cdr. Ken Wallis, MBE, RAF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / PILOT 21 May - 23 May 2009 Georgina Hunter-Jones HELIRUSSIA 2009 [email protected] Moscow Expo Centre CREATIVE DIRECTORS Phone: +7 495 643 11 93 [email protected] Fax: +7 495 643 11 94 COPY EDITORS Evangeline Hunter-Jones, JP E-mail: [email protected] John Wilson Website: http://www.helirussia.ru CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ralph Arnesen, Rainer Herzberg, Gerben van 22 May - 24 May 2009 Beek, Simon Watson and Philip Camp, Darren Litton, Dino Marcellino, David Warren AEROExPO 2009 Prague Letnany Exhibition Centre CONTRIBUTED PHOTOGRAPHY Ralph Arnesen, Gerben van Beek, Philip Camp, Letnany / Kbely Airfield Darren Litton, Luis Fernando Lopez, Dino Marcellino, Alan Norris, Simon Watson (Aviation 9 miles outside Prague Bookshop) David Warren Phone: +44 (0) 20 8549 3917 SPECIAL THANKS TO Fax: +44 (0) 20 8255 4300 Dave Smith ATPL(H)IR, Barton on Sea Golf Email: [email protected] Course, Reg Austin Website: http://www.expo.aero/prague ADVERTISING Telephone: +44-(0)20-7430-2384 [email protected] 15 June - 21 June 2009 PARIS AIRSHOW 2009 SUBSCRIPTIONS Go to our website or turn to page 54 Aeroport Le Bourget, Paris [email protected] France WEBSITE Fax: +33 1 47 20 00 86 www.helicopterlife.com email: [email protected] COVER PHOTOGRAPH Registration: www.salon-du-bourget.fr Flying away from the Convention Centre at Website: www.paris-air-show.com Anaheim after the HAI HeliExpo 09 by Georgina Hunter-Jones 24 September - 29 September 2009 HELITECH 2009 HELICOPTER LIFE is published quarterly by FlyFizzi Ltd. Duxford Airfield, Cambridge 59 Great Ormond Street London, WC 1N-3 Hz . England Copyright © FlyFizzi Ltd. 2009. Contact Brandon Ward ISSN 1743-1042. Fax: +44 (0)20 8439 8853 All rights reserved. Opinions expressed herein are not neces - sarily those of the pub lishers, the Editor or any of the editorial email: [email protected] staff. Reproduction in whole or in part, in any form whatever, Website: www.helitech.co.uk is strictly prohibited without specific written permission of the Editor. 4 HELICOPTER LIFE, Spring 2009 T HE EDITOR S LETTER ome years ago, while editor of the sight of a golf course on my right, a different publication, I asked and I decided to land. Barton on Sea Sa question: “Why don’t pilots Golf Course was extremely surprised take taxis?” This was related to an to see a helicopter shutting down. incident in which a pilot had landed One wag asked, “Parlez vous Anglais?” his helicopter safely, shut down, and About an hour later the cloud base could have left the machine for the lifted and the visibility increased, and night. But he decided, for a variety of I finished the journey to reasons, to take off again and try to Bournemouth. However, my instruc - get back to his home airfield. On this tions were to wait for the 25-hour final part of the journey, flying check to be done and a trim motor to allegedly at less than 100 feet and be replaced. These jobs took longer about 20 knots of forward speed, he than expected, and, given the state of crashed into a hillside and was killed. the weather and the imminent dark - This comment came back to me in ness, I asked the engineers if they callous attitude of employers? Is it December last year, when a similar thought I could be away by 3 pm. just the certainty that their skill is thing happened to me. They weren’t sure, so I rang the com - greater than average, and so they will I was taking a Hughes 300 from pany I was ferrying for and asked if I get through where others have failed? Biggin Hill to Bournemouth for rou - could, if necessary, take a taxi home. I still don’t know the answer, but I am tine engineering. The weather at I was told: “We would not pay for our glad I took the taxi. Biggin was good, and although the directors to have a taxi, take a train!” In the Accident Reports, there is a weather at Bournemouth was Annoyed, I decided to fly the heli - report by the NTSB in the USA of mediocre, having a 700 foot cloud copter back as far as I could…. their findings on several EMS flights base, it was ‘TAFed’ to clear. Sounds like a familiar scenario? that led to 35 fatalities in one year. All On the way down through The Luckily for me, Bournemouth is on of these occurred at night, and most in Downs I talked to Farnborough, and the coast. I left at 3.34 pm, it got dark IMC. The recurring theme seems to discovered that most other aircraft at 4.20, and it takes an hour and a be either lack of pilot training, or flying were IMC, although one let half to reach Biggin Hill. The night poorly equipped helicopters. It is down close to me at 1,000 feet. itself was not an issue, as I have a important to stress that US EMS Luckily (or perhaps unluckily, as it night rating, but the drop in temperature pilots fly in conditions vetoed by leads to more risk taking), I know the that comes with night, and the resultant European, Japanese and other coun - route between Biggin Hill and increase in saturation and decrease in tries; but clearly, if helicopters are Bournemouth extremely well. Even visibility was. But I was angry! going to do that type of flight, both so, in decreasing visibility and lower - Obviously, this did not become an the pilots and the helicopters should ing cloudbase, I decided to follow the incident and I am not a statistic. After be sufficiently up to date, whatever railway line to Portsmouth. By the half an hour, with decreasing cloud- the cost. Once again we come back to time I hit the coast I was down to base and visibility, and aware that I those two certainties of flying: It will about 300 feet and less than 4000 would have to leave the coast to get cost a lot (what is too much when a metres visibility. Talking to up to Biggin Hill, which sits at 600 life is at stake?) And everyone thinks Bournemouth I was cheered to hear feet - I was currently at 200 - I someone else should pay for it. another helicopter say that he was at realised I needed to land. Even as I As this is credit crunch time, and 500 feet at Hengistbury Head, the considered flying to Goodwood, Lee- we are reorganising banks and busi - VRP point for Bournemouth. on-Solent airfield came into view. nesses, it is probably time for helicop - a t ter companies too to reassess. We may t Unfortunately, he was not telling the truth. Now was not the time to be proud - e h c end with fewer companies, but at least r Past Lymington, I was just over better to land and take that taxi! u t they will be properly equipped.