Bell 214ST helicopters on firefighting ops in Greece

[CharlieOneSix]

Unfortunately the 21 minutes of this video is very repetitive and just shows four 214ST helicopters uplifting 2600 litres of sea water into the collapsable ‘Tsunami’ Belly Tank system whilst firefighting in Greece this summer. Great helicopter - spent 18 years flying the type and shared quite a few hours cockpit time in them with FD2.

A clever system of uplifting water.



This very short video shows the water drop on a fire...

[OneHungLow]

Unfortunately the 21 minutes of this video is very repetitive and just shows four 214ST helicopters uplifting 2600 litres of sea water into the collapsable ‘Tsunami’ Belly Tank system whilst firefighting in Greece this summer. Great helicopter - spent 18 years flying the type and shared quite a few hours cockpit time in them with FD2.

A clever system of uplifting water.

I was apt to find out more about how that system worked.

Tanks versus buckets

https://www.mcdermottaviation.com/opera ... e-control/


I see there is a quite a big difference in specification between the Bell 214ST and the Bell 214B, something I had not previously been aware of.

Bell 212ST

The Bell 214ST is a medium-lift, twin-engine helicopter descended from Bell Helicopter's ubiquitous UH-1 Huey series. Though it shares a type number with the somewhat-related Bell 214, the 214ST is larger and of quite different appearance.

[FD2]

It has a rather eccentric stabilisation and autopilot system. At the Bell factory in Fort Worth they told us, maybe tongue in cheek, that Bell had asked Sperry to design a system for the ST. Bell baulked at the quoted price and said they would do it themselves. After some difficult work which Bell thought had sorted most of the system out they went back to Sperry to get a quote for finishing the work. The quote was the same and so Bell's own, odd system was installed and took some time for the pilots to get accustomed to. The favourite mistake when ground taxiing was to not disengage the yaw pedals with the switch on the collective, which caused an almighty, very fast swing, in the desired direction of yaw when the system was overcome by the pilots leg muscles! Luckily we had a brilliant Iranian avionics engineer (FS) at Aberdeen who knew the system like the back of his hand and could sort out the many problems that cropped up with it.

I love the sound on the water lifting clip. Bristow sent one down from Aberdeen (MN) to help out with some work at North Denes but Ops was bombarded with many noise complaints from up and down the coast and several miles inland, so back it went up north. I flew one over Orkney which tracked over the irascible composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies hideout on one of the islands and the flights were re-routed the next day.

[Rwy in Sight]

There was a landslide the other day in Samara canyon in Crete and a tourist was severely injured necessitating an airlift. Paradoxically instead of the usual on duty chopper of the HAF an AB206 or a AS-332 Super Puma the Bell 214ST was used as shown on this clip BELL 214ST SAR

[CharlieOneSix]

......we had a brilliant Iranian avionics engineer (FS) at Aberdeen who knew the system like the back of his hand and could sort out the many problems that cropped up with it.

FS was an amazing man and saved the company's bacon on more than one occasion. When I had my part time printing and publishing business I produced some manuals for him when he subsequently started up his own avionics business.

......At the Bell factory in Fort Worth they told us, maybe tongue in cheek, that Bell had asked Sperry to design a system for the ST. Bell baulked at the quoted price and said they would do it themselves.

No tongue in cheek - that was very true!

...........with many noise complaints from up and down the coast and several miles inland.........

When we first got the 214STs in Aberdeen in 1982 we received a written noise complaint from a farmer near Ellon who said that every time we flew over his fields his cows mistook the helicopter for his tractor. They were getting very confused by this and it was affecting their milk production. Our MD took this very seriously as we knew it was a noisy machine and so he wrote back with an attempt at an explanation and inviting the farmer to visit us at BCAL Helicopters. We heard no more but soon became aware that the MD's letter was pinned to a Bond Helicopters notice board in Aberdeen and the whole thing was a spoof dreamed up by a Bond pilot and for which we fell hook, line and sinker!

Back at Fort Worth - one day whilst I was there a delegation from a Middle East country was visiting to assess the 214ST and on day one they were walking out onto the apron to see a parked one. One of the Bell test pilots, SB, was on a local test flight and was called in to do a fly-by. The delegation were unaware of this request and SB appeared from behind a hangar in a steep turn at VNE at snake height and, with the incredible associated thumping rotor noise at VNE if you are in the twelve o'clock position, the delegation thought they were being fired upon and threw themselves to the ground. I don't know whether that country became a customer.......