We put the Tiger in China

The beaming idiot on the left is me. Hello me. The chap in the centre was the boss and the right hand man in jeans was the chief engineer. Behind us is a Super Puma or Bristow Tiger.
This is the first European helicopter flown into China. It had been flown from Aberdeen to Southampton and all the bits removed, it was then craned onto the top of a pile of containers and wrapped, believe it or not in bubble wrap. When the ship arrived at Hong Kong the aircraft was lifted clear and placed on the dockside, the engineers then put it back together again while we did the pilot bits; providing cold drinks and sandwiches. That evening we flew her from the dock to Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s old and loved airport.
The next morning we flew from Kai Tak to Guangzhou (Canton) cleared customs and returned to our new base at Shenzhen. None of us had seen a dispersal as large as the one at G’zhou. It was supposedly civilian but of course could handle anything. The air traffic controller had to be dragged into the tower as nobody else spoke English. This was the same for the next year. The only ATC we, the ex-patriate pilots, spoke to were at Hong Kong. Our Chinese co-pilots did not speak English, all communication was through an interpreter. That slowed things down somewhat so we had to think two or three stages ahead of our situation. Then the interpreter would occasionally throw in a googlie, “I don’t think you should say that to him.” 
On two occasions I had to tell the co-pilot to sit on his hands and on no account was he to touch anything. That year took it’s toll on me, three months on, one off. An amazing country, achieving huge things but how I wanted to hand pick the people we worked with. The engineers were great, the original bunch of pilots were horrific. Death before dishonour. Trying to return to base in a Typhoon one of them removed his hands from the controls and in best Cantonese wailed, “I can’t do this anymore.” Well cheers pal! 
The aircraft was destroyed when it struck a hill during severe weather. I lost a good friend that day, Elaine knew it could have been me. You may notice the word Buckie on the pilot’s door. All the super pumas had local North East Scotland names allocated to them. 
Ash, RIP mate, G-TIGN, thanks for the ride. 

Some of you may be aware that super pumas were crashing when the rotor blades and part of the main mast detached in flight. Here’s what happened to one Norwegian aircraft; the first thing you will see is the massive rotor head idly spinning away into the distance, it landed in a field, almost intact. The aircraft, passengers and crew were less fortunate. 


Super Puma crash.