HELICOPTER LIFE W INTER 2008 / £3.99 www.helicopterlife.com RussianRussian TsarsTsars HELICOPTER LIFEis theHIGH LIFE Let’s sticktogether... ...it makes sense For all your aviation insurance needs... Hayward Aviation Limited Insurance Brokers Hayward Aviation Limited Harling House 47/51 Great Suffolk St London SE1 0BS Email: [email protected] Web: www.haywards.net Tel: +44 (0)20 7902 7800 Fax: +44 (0)20 7928 8040 Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority HELICOPTER Winter 2008 LIFE COVER STORY Show & Tell Guide 4 World Helicopter Aviation shows and conferences. Championships Gill Jenkins 32 The Editor’s Letter 5 watches helicopters in Eisenach in Aerial Forum 6 & 10 Germany and fol - Richard Patterson looks at Altitude & Hypoxia lows the fates of the national teams in Letters to the Editor 7, 11, 21 the WHC Flying Crackers 8, 9 Gas and Oil 40 Rainer Herzberg visits CHC Helikopter Service Oxford Graduates 12 A/S Norway’s largest supplier of oil platforms Georgina Hunter- Jones flies the Defenders of the Dutch 46 MD500 to Oxford to Arjan Dijksterhuis see the new airport, visits the Dutch which is hoping to Defence Helicopter become the ‘London Command, evalu - at Oxford’ alterna - ates how it has been tive to the small air - restructured after fields around the capital and those slightly further defence cuts and away such as Luton and Stansted whether the public are still getting New Technology 16 good bang for buck Helicopter Life looks at the new Sikorsky X-2 and the Spidertracks ELT alternative British Aristocracy 52 Rainer Herzberg visits one of the few remaining Eurocopter EC225 Simulator 18 Bristol Sycamores still flying Helicopter Life flies to Marseille to visit HeliSim and see the inauguration of the EC225 simulator Dubai HeliShow 56 Helicopter Life Shadows in the goes out to Dubai to Rain 22 see how the helicop - Jakub Fojtik ter market in the Gulf visits the Slovak region is expanding police and writes and whether or not about the changes the exhibitors, local in the force since or international, have the end of the era been hit by the world credit crunch HeliTech Cascais 26 Georgina Hunter- HUMS by Ralph Arnesen 60 Jones flies out to the first HeliTech in Helicopter Futures 62 Cascais Portugal and watches their Book Reviews 63 live fire fighting dis - play and assesses Accident Reports 64 the show and its potential future House & Helicopter 66 HELICOPTER LIFE,Winter 2008 3 SHOW & T ELL HELICOPTER G UIDE 22 February - 24 February 2009 LIFE HAI HELIEXPO 2009 Orange Convention Centre, Anaheim, California, USA WINTER 2008 Phone + 1 (703) 683-4646 HON. EDITORIAL BOARD Fax: + 1 (703) 683-4745 Captain Eric Brown, CBE, RN Email: [email protected] The Lord Glenarthur, DL Website: www.heliexpo.com Jennifer Murray Michael J. H. Smith 30 March - 1 April 2009 Wing Cdr. Ken Wallis, MBE, RAF THE FUTURE OF HUMAN ERROR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / PILOT MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION Georgina Hunter-Jones CHC Helicopters 5th Annual [email protected] Safety & Quality Summit CREATIVE DIRECTORS Fourmont Vancouver Hotel [email protected] Vancouver, BC, Canada COPY EDITORS Evangeline Hunter-Jones, JP Email: [email protected] John Wilson Website: www.chcsafetyqualitysummit.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Arjan Dijksterhuis, Jakub Fojtik, Rainer 21 May - 23 May 2009 Herzberg, Gill Jenkins, Ralph Arnesen, Alan Norris, Richard Patterson, Antoine Grondeau HELIRUSSIA 2009 Moscow Expo Centre CONTRIBUTED PHOTOGRAPHY Agusta Helicopters, Arjan Dijksterhuis, Jakub Phone: +7 495 643 11 93 Fojtik, Eurocopter, Rainer Herzberg, Alan Norris, Daniel Rybka, Sikorsky Helicopters, Neil Fax: +7 495 643 11 94 Harrison, Milo Brockway, Antoine Grondeau E-mail: [email protected] SPECIAL THANKS TO Website: http://www.helirussia.ru Dave Smith ATPL(H)IR, Robert Edmonds ATPL(A) IR, translator 22 May - 24 May 2009 ADVERTISING AEROEXPO 2009 Prague Telephone: +44-(0)20-7430-2384 [email protected] Letnany Exhibition Centre Letnany / Kbely Airfield SUBSCRIPTIONS Go to our website or turn to page 54 9 miles outside Prague [email protected] Phone: +44 (0) 20 8549 3917 WEBSITE Fax: +44 (0) 20 8255 4300 www.helicopterlife.com Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.expo.aero/prague COVER PHOTOGRAPH Neil Harrison, Mil Mi-2 at the World Helicopter 15 June - 21 June 2009 Championships in Eisenach, Germany PARIS AIRSHOW 2009 Aeroport Le Bourget, Paris HELICOPTER LIFE is published quarterly by FlyFizzi Ltd. France 59 Great Ormond Street London, WC 1N-3 Hz . Fax: +33 1 47 20 00 86 Copyright © FlyFizzi Ltd. 2008. email: [email protected] ISSN 1743-1042. Registration: www.salon-du-bourget.fr All rights reserved. Opinions expressed herein are not neces - sarily those of the pub lishers, the Editor or any of the editorial Website: www.paris-air-show.com staff. Reproduction in whole or in part, in any form whatever, is strictly prohibited without specific written permission of the Editor. 4 HELICOPTER LIFE, Winter 2008 T HE EDITOR S LETTER t happened: Barrack Obama won. now is a good time to re-evaluate and Great news, but he will have a lot decide where to go from here. How Ito do to keep up with the level of will the market change? Will the R66 expectation placed upon him. There is finally emerge as the saviour of the a joke going around that the winner floundering helicopter world? Will of the US election should ask for a the restrictions of bureaucracy and recount, so great is the crisis that the Health and Safety be called into ques - USA and the world now faces. tion? Will helicopter companies fol - This crisis has hit helicopters and low Honda’s lead and stop manufac - even jets. Ireland was one of the first turing for a few months? places to feel the effects, with Irish Strangely, I personally have been helicopter pilots streaming across the very busy as a helicopter examiner. It UK and into Europe looking for jobs, seems that a lot of people who had and helicopters going so cheap that allowed their helicopter licence, or you could pick up two for the previ - sometimes their ratings, to lapse, aircraft manufacturers, such as Miles ous price of one. Even insurance has have reached the five year mark and, Aircraft Ltd. which went bankrupt in been hit, as companies downsize and rather than let the licence disappear 1947. jet owners keep one flying while altogether, they have decided to While the current situation is not mothballing the rest of the fleet: renew it. In one week I did three five- the same, for example, we are still ground-risk saves money for the year renewals, two on turbines (the involved in several wars, there are owner but gives a lot less to the Bell 206 and the Hughes 500), and recognisable factors, principally the insurance companies, which may lead one on a Hughes 300, and two of huge debts run up by our various gov - to premiums rising next year. those were for commercial pilots. So ernments, and this is something of However, certain industries seem clearly some people, at least, have which anyone wants to be wary. There to have felt the effects of the crisis faith in the future regeneration of the are clearly rough times ahead, but we less than others: one of these is the helicopter market. have seen them before and the majori - oil and gas industry, which Rainer Of course, aviation companies ty of companies will get through, Herzberg writes about in this issue; have been in this situation before. In even if slightly changed and perhaps and the other is simulator training, the Second World War aircraft manu - slimlined. The aim is to be one of which apparently has had a boost, facturers did well. In the USA the those that can look back and remem - even though pilots may have to wait a aerospace industry became the largest ber the others, with a small smile of little to get a job. Helicopter markets, industry in the world, rising from 41st sorrowful regret! of course, are cyclical and hence this place, and producing more than As it is Christmas, I want to say a should be a good time for commercial 300,000 aircraft between 1940 and special ‘thank you’ to advertisers and training, and, assuming you complete 1945. This compared to 1939 when subscribers who have stayed with us your training around 2010, the market 6,000 aircraft were built. in these troubled times. We all know should be growing again. Once peace time returned, howev - that advertising is one of the first This does not seem to be true of er, there was an enormous problem things to go when times are hard, but helicopter shows, however, and the with the over-production of aircraft, you have stayed with us, so thank two mentioned in this issue appeared and this was true not only in the you, and I hope you and all the read - considerably down on both visitors USA, but in countries like the UK, ers have a really special Christmas and exhibitors. Personally, I enjoyed which had given favourable tax and a lovely New Year. both shows enormously, especially regimes to aircraft manufacturers and Welcome to the Era of Change the the one which featured the large, were now trying to pay off massive question is: will it be the House of s i r empty booth of one of our competitor debts to the USA and Canada. The r Fun? Or just Madness? o n magazines! But the mere fact that easiest way for the government to get n a l most of the exhibitors had plenty of out of debt was to increase tax, and to a h P a time to joke around with the press renege on previous tax ‘favours’: this r g o speaks volumes.