Bump Caps

Here we are looking rather silly in our "bump caps" at the Aberdeen, Scotland hangar, day one of our AS332L2 course.  I'm sure the safety dudes would have a conniption fit if they knew one guy took his "bump cap" off then promptly smacked his head.  No blood, no paperwork...

We've settled into grey and gloomy Aberdeen, rainy, windy and cold but equally alive and bustling with Christmas shoppers and festive lights, and everyone on course agrees, these are some of the friendliest people we've ever met.  We had no idea Scots were such an amicable lot, but the smiling and pleasant locals more than make up for the dreary weather.  Maybe that's why everyone is so cool?

My days are spent pouring over systems and limitations, and reconnecting cerebral links to Super Puma systems knowledge tucked away into remote recesses of my brain, ostensibly to make room in my addled head for the AW139, but being back on Pumas has my brain firing off synapsis at an alarming rate and it's coming back, slowly but surely.  Everything is so well thought out in the AW139, designed from the ground up with integration and modern simplicity in mind, and it works, but almost too well.  The AW139 is not a challenging bird to fly, as it is one very smart aircraft.  Enter the AS332L2.  This is a pilot's helicopter...big and complicated and cumbersome and requiring some pretty serious headspace for full understanding.  Even as I sat in the old girl for the first time, very similar to the Super Pumas I've flown for better than two thousand hours, but with first generation glass flight displays, and many modern enhancements, I felt like a pilot.  I was looking forward to the challenge, to take these girls out to some deep water rigs far far offshore.  Super Pumas are just seriously cool aircraft.....

Then....Friday night in Aberdeen, what kind of trouble can one find?  Overflow from company Christmas parties serving free alcohol spilled into the damp streets, drunk and over dressed Scots filled every bar, pub and night club, stumbling down the streets, happy, laughing, and old ancient stone churches turned into Gothic night clubs with spider webs and skulls on the walls.  I am really starting to like Aberdeen......