Rotor Torque

BH Pacific also hope to expand their workshop capability to cover makes other than Bell in a bid to secure repair and overhaul work in the South Pacific region in general and have set their sights on a larger share of the military repair and overhaul market, which is currently almost completely monopolised by Hawker de Havilland.

Custom Avionics

Well known Bankstown based avionics specialists Dasyl Pty Ltd are building quite a reputation for themselves on the installation of complex customer-specified avionics in helicopters, their most recent efforts being complete packages installed in the new Aerospatiale 350B’s of Careflight in Sydney and Channel 7 in Perth.

Apart from offering complete installations in new helicopters, Dasyl are also offering upgrading of the avionics packages in older machines, something they have been successfully carrying out on fixed wing aircraft for some time as more owners and operators are completely refurbishing their existing aircraft due largely to the high cost of new machines.

Dasyl will shortly be expanding their facilities at Bankstown Airport to twice their present size and are computerising a big percentage of their administration and workshops to further improve what is already a first class operation.

Robinson to Develop a Seat Helicopter

The highly successful Robinson helicopter company is to develop a four seat helicopter. Little additional information is available except that the new machine will embody all the cost saving benefits of the highly popular R22 series.

Robinson are presently building 8 aircraft a month at a time when the helicopter industry has slumped due to the rapid decrease in resource exploration requirements. Furthermore with production consistently sold out six months in advance Robinson are planning to increase their production rate to sixteen a month by year end to meet demand. The highest time R22s are now approaching 4,000 hours while locally the type has seen its fleet increase at a greater rate than any other helo on the Australian register.

End of an Era

When Captain Wally Watkins flew Bell 212 P2-HCO on to number 5 wharf Darling Harbour on July 11th bound for McMinnville, Oregon it marked the end of Evergreen Helicopter operations in the South Pacific which first began in Singapore in 1977 with the takeover of Pat Lloyd’s Heliservices (Pte) Ltd. , followed by the founding of Commercial Aviation Pty Limited in Australia in 1978 as a joint venture with Rex Aviation Limited.

In March 1985 when Commercial Aviation’s operations were drawing to a close, Evergreen joined Papua New Guinea operator Hevi Lift Pty Ltd to continue provision of helicopter services to Shell Petroleum Development on their Sepik seismic programme and P2-HCO was imported for this purpose.

With Hevi Lift acquiring its own helicopters the joint venture broke up and the earlier than expected termination contract saw P2-HCO on its way back to Oregon.

Extended Turbine Overhaul Shop Opens

Aviation Turbine Overhaul Pty Ltd at Moorabbin Airport, officially opened its extended facility on Thursday, 24th June 1986, at a function attended by representatives of commercial and general operators, major engineering support agencies, Department of Defence, Department of Aviation and the Victorian State Government

1986 Helicopter Operators Directory

Our November edition again hosts our 1986 Helicopter Operators Directory. As you would remember from last year, this most helpful Directory lists the operators involved in the numerous aspects of Australian rotary wing operation – mustering, training, air taxi, charter, hire, SAR, etc. Additionally, we also list the fleets and their relevant registrations which can then be cross referenced via our two part Register listing (A-K in the May issue and L-Z in the July edition) and the subsequent in-depth Updates that appear in each subsequent issue.

In other words, if you want to know (for instance) who is involved in training or charter, then our November issue Directory will tell you. If on the other hand you want to know how many Bell 206 Jetrangers are in Australian service and who owns them, then we can tell you this also. It’s all in our November edition so don’t miss it.