Heli Charter not ready for 1st January start with Wiltshire Bell 429

Heli Charter not ready for 1st January start with Wiltshire Bell 429

22-Dec-2014 Source: HeliHub.com

Wiltshire Air Ambulance should start operating their new Bell 429 on 1st January, and their recent press release which stated “a delay of a week or so while we enhance our safety training on the Bell 429 and satisfy the Civil Aviation Authority of our mission readiness” was indeed very carefully worded.  For some non-aviation media outlets, the “enhance our safety training” was the headline both the BBC and local press picked up, but as an aviation media source, it’s no surprise HeliHub.com focused on the need to “satisfy the CAA”.

While they have had the public launch of their new branding and the striking yellow/green Bell 429, the organisation has confirmed to HeliHub.com today that operators Heli Charter are not ready.  Two notable shortcomings are that Heli Charter still need UK CAA approval:-

  • to operate an EMS helicopter (the “EMS Supplement” to their AOC), and
  • to carry out line maintenance from their initial Wiltshire base at the Police HQ in Devizes.

Neither of these are insurmountable, and Wiltshire Air Ambulance are confident that there will be no further delays beyond the booked CAA inspections in January 2015, but with the contract having been announced back in January 2014, it seems surprising that these important aspects were not in place in good time.

There will be a total of four pilots for the operation.  George Lawrence and Nicky Smith are the two pilots currently employed for the contract, and join from Wiltshire Police and Essex/Herts Air Ambulance respectively.  Both are Bell 429 rated after recently completing their training in Eastern Europe. Steve Judd has just joined Heli Charter as the Operations Manager post holder and will become the third pilot. A fourth pilot, Matt Hancock, will join in the second half of January.  The latter pair are planned to go through with their Bell 429 type rating training in late January.

With the 429 being the first use of this type in the UK EMS market, Wiltshire Air Ambulance confidently told us they haven’t experienced any teething problems so far.  However, they did note that the installation of the TETRA radio modification proved to be “more articulated than initially budgeted for” so the 429 will not be fitted with a permanent installation yet, and an approximate February/March timeframe is being quoted. Meanwhile the crew will use “a temporary but just as effective solution”, details of which were not provided.  Again, the TETRA requirement was known about in plenty of time, and looks to be 2-3 months adrift at best.

Night operations will commence in the spring upon completion of training of pilots and operational approvals – that aspect had always been planned as a later step and was announced at the aircraft launch in late October as targeted for April 2015.  At that stage the helicopter will be available 19 hours a day

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com

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Photo (c) Copyright 2014 Graeme Lovell for HeliHub.com

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