by Alan Bristow
Our first S61s came out of the blue, courtesy of Esso. I took a call in 1970 from a chap who introduced himself as Bill Stevens, Managing Director of Esso in London. ‘Is that Alan Bristow?’ he said. ‘Can you put a couple of S61Ns into service for me in Terengganu in Malaysia on the seventh of May next year?’
‘S61Ns are very difficult to come by,’ I said. ‘I can’t make any promises.’
‘You misunderstand,’ he said. ‘We’ve already got positions on the production line with Sikorsky. You can have our positions.’
‘How long is the contract?’ I asked.
‘Oh, three, four, five, six years, don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘We plan to build a major oil production centre there. We’ve got a big programme.’
‘I’m perfectly happy to take over your positions and operate these S61Ns on your behalf,’ I said glibly. ‘Please send me a telegram inviting me to tender so I know exactly what you want and when you want it. I’ll have a price for the contract within forty-eight hours.’
Then I sat down with Stan Couchman, the accountant who helped do my costings, and worked out what price we could offer Esso. The whole arrangement was made with a minimum of paperwork and fuss. We acquired the helicopters and agreed terms with nothing more than an exchange of telegrams between Bristows and Esso specifying what work was to be done, who would provide which facilities, and what the basic payment schedule was to be. There was no formal contract. I flew to Malaysia and found that Terengganu was a bunch of huts on a sandy beach. It was clear that for the first six months or a year our staff would be living in Portakabins and tents. Back in London I spoke to Bill Stevens.
‘We may be there before your airport is built,’ I said.
‘Very well,’ said Bill. ‘I’ll put some concrete down for you.’ And that is what happened, on the strength of a telephone conversation – not a word in writing. As promised, the contract was a long one and lasted until the Malaysians decided they wanted to do their own helicopter service work.
I got to know Bill Stevens very well. He turned out to be a shooting fanatic. After four years in London he was shipped back to Houston and rose to be President of Exxon. He called me one day from Texas.
‘Alan, I’m in deep shit and it’s all your fault.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Remember that first Malaysia job? I’ve been descended upon by the company’s auditors and they can’t find a contract for the four aircraft we’re paying you for in Malaysia.’
‘Well I’m getting paid,’ I said. ‘On time, and to the penny.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Bill. ‘But there’s no written contract. These guys think I can’t explain what happened to all the money. What am I gonna do?’
‘Leave it to me,’ I said.
And so a contract was drawn up between Bristow Helicopters Malaysia Ltd and Esso, backdated to the relevant year. I dog-eared the corners, put some Bovril cup rings on it, burned it with my cigar, rubbed it to fade some of the typing, punched holes in it so it looked like it had been in a filing cabinet and sent it to Bill in Houston.
Bill was most grateful. ‘By great good fortune, I’ve been able to find my copy of our contract,’ he said to me. ‘These bastards here think you’ve been getting all this money and paying me off. You know, it’s an extraordinary thing but the punch holes in your filing system exactly match mine.’
During one of our working lunches Jack Woolley mentioned he’d heard of two S61s that had been seriously damaged in Italy. ‘They’re owned by a subsidiary of Alitalia,’ he said. ‘One made a heavy landing and probably only needs an alignment check to return it to service. The other fell off a rig onto a crew boat moored alongside. From what I hear, it’s badly damaged.’
‘Get yourself to Italy and see if you can buy them,’ I said.
Next day Jack called me to report that the one that had the heavy landing could be repaired quite quickly if we could get hold of a S61 jig with which to straighten it out, but the second one was a bit of a mess.
‘We’ve got to buy them, Jack,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t matter what state they’re in, there’s nothing else available.’
‘How much?’ asked Jack.
‘Try £30,000 for the good one and next to nothing for the other,’ I said.
Jack was soon back on the phone. ‘No deal,’ he said.
‘How much do they want?’
‘£50,000 for the two,’ said Jack.
‘Pay it,’ I said.
We hired some trucks and shipped them to England. Jack called in some favours and bought a jig from Sikorsky, and the less-damaged helicopter was returned to flying condition within a few weeks and sent to Aberdeen to do battle with BEA. The wreck was dragged into a hangar at Redhill, and it was so big it virtually filled the building. Jack worked night and day to rebuild the wreck from the ground up. Eventually it too was ready to fly, but Jack came into my office one morning to explain that he had a major headache with it.
‘We can’t get the bloody thing out of the hangar,’ he said. ‘Now that we’ve put it all together, it’s too tall to go through the door. We’ll have to cut a hole in the gable end.’
‘You can’t do that,’ I said. ‘These old wartime hangars were never stressed for that, it’ll fall down on your head. Dig a trench and get it out instead.’
So that’s what we did – two trenches, in fact, to accommodate the wheels, and the rotor hub cleared the door lintel by an inch.
The shortage of S61s led BA to enter into a ‘pool arrangement’ whereby helicopters were not dedicated to a single customer but shared between oil companies as they became available. This was a very unsatisfactory service and I strove to avoid it. The companies didn’t like it – the Chairman of the Board might turn up, you’d have known for a week he was coming but the helicopter would be off working for Total or Elf or somebody, and he’d have to wait for it to come back before he could go out. All BHL contracts at that time provided dedicated helicopters to each client, together with vital added-value services like twenty-four-hour paramedics, which was something the oil men appreciated. It was also a hard and fast rule at Bristows that we didn’t niggle when things didn’t work out to our advantage. Sometimes you have to absorb the bumps, whether they’re your fault or the client’s – if it cost you money, you just had to live with it. The oil companies had enough on their plates without having contractors trying to nickel-and-dime them. If BHL took a hit, we did so without complaint, and carried on giving the customers a jolly good service. They came to have a great deal of trust in our performance.
There was one error that I couldn’t absorb, and that was when I got a BP contract price badly wrong. Don’t ask me how I did it – my workload was pretty high at the time – but it soon became clear that I’d grossly underestimated my costs. In fact, it was as simple as it was disastrous; I’d tendered for a BP contract without factoring in depreciation on the helicopters. All these contracts have a review period, a few months after agreement, at which time either side can revisit the figures and the level of service, and at the end of the review period I had to go to Basil Butler at BP and say I’m sorry, sir, I’ve got my figures badly wrong and I’m going to have to raise my price by twenty per cent to break even.
Basil was Director of Exploration on the North Sea and a great sailing man; he was often a guest on my boat. We had a meeting at which I explained the situation in detail.
‘Can I see your costings?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But you can take my word for it that everything I say is absolutely true.’
British Airways Helicopters was at the door begging for the business, but Basil stuck by Bristows and increased the contract price to cover the shortfall. After that experience I made a template to cover all eventualities in contracts, and I didn’t send in a bid until I’d ticked all the boxes.
For several years I had half a dozen helicopters flying for BP in the Forties Field on a rolling contract, and they got an excellent service. Then one day I had a ca
ll from Basil.
‘Alan, the partners think we should give somebody else a chance to provide a helicopter service,’ he said.
‘Have I done anything wrong?’ I asked.
‘No, but you know how it is – they always think somebody else is offering a better deal.’
I suspect British Airways had been getting around the BP directors and whispering in their ears. I put in a bid, and Basil called me.
‘Can you do something about the price?’
‘No, it’s the same as you were getting two years ago.’ I’d gone through the figures very carefully with Stan Couchman. ‘You’ve got a very keen price,’ I told Basil. ‘We’re making about five and a half per cent on our capital investment and if we get a heavy utilisation, which we do from time to time, that puts it up to about seven and a half per cent. Quite frankly, in such a high risk business that doesn’t allow for reinvestment.’
‘Well, you’re not going to win on those figures, Alan.’
The contract went to British Airways, and when I saw the terms on which it was granted I arranged to have lunch with Basil. ‘You’re not comparing like with like,’ I told him. ‘You’ve signed up for a pool system where they say they’ll give you a helicopter whenever you need it, but you’ll find it won’t work in practice. When you need a helicopter you’ll find it’s somewhere else working for somebody else and you have to wait your turn. Your one o’ clock departure turns into a three o’ clock departure and the delays will cost you far more than you save on the contract. What’s more, there’s no specific requirement in here to have a night duty crew on site ready to go, and there are no paramedic services for dealing with casualties on site. I’ve been giving you dedicated BP helicopters equipped for casualty evacuation and crewed for twenty-four-hour service.’
‘I hear what you’re saying, Alan, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The directors have made their decision.’
‘Mark my words, Basil, you’ll be back within a year complaining about the service you’re getting.’
In fact it was six months later that Basil called. ‘Alan, it’s all gone wrong. We can’t get our people where we want them when we need to get them there.’
‘You must have a performance clause in the contract,’ I said. ‘You certainly did with me. It said that in the even of non-performance you could terminate the contract.’
‘Could you step in and fill the breach?’ asked Basil.
‘I’m not sure I could, just like that,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to see what equipment I can get for you, and you won’t get a better price than I was giving you before; I’d probably have to put it up a bit. But if I come in, I can guarantee you the service you need.’
A month later Basil called. ‘The partners have had a review and they’ve agreed to terminate the contract with British Airways,’ he said. ‘We’d like to negotiate a five-year contract with you, Alan.’
‘Five years!’ I said. It was unheard of at that time for an oil company to sign such a long contract.
‘Yes,’ said Basil. ‘We’ve mucked you about and we’re making it up to you.’
A month later I had a five-year contract from BP, and as usual we gave them excellent service. My personal relationship with Basil Butler was supremely important in overcoming these difficulties; I trusted him implicitly, and he trusted me.
Eventually I managed to buy several batches of S61Ns for the North Sea and they started coming on stream in 1978. Finance was always a juggling act, but we were able to get money at five or six per cent from the export guarantee banks. Our costings target was to have the helicopters paid off in four years, and it was a high-risk strategy because it was difficult to get a contract for more than a couple of years.
The shortage of S61Ns led us to turn to Aerospatiale, from whom we bought the 330J Puma. It was a very successful military helicopter, in service with armies around the world, but it was never quite right for the civil market. When it entered service in Aberdeen in 1976 it was a stopgap; there was nothing else available apart from the Chinook, which I didn’t want. Such was our rate of expansion at the time that in order to maintain market share I ordered ten 330Js and eventually took eleven, with an option on five more.
The 330J was offered on the civil market as a virtually unmodified military helicopter. It carried nineteen passengers in canvas seats in the middle, like paratroopers, and we put them straight into service like that. The nineteen-seat configuration was disliked by the customers, to such an extent that extraordinary measures were taken to remove the canvas seats and replace them with airline-style seating, which reduced the capacity to fifteen passengers. As a result the Puma was really too small for the long haul to the rigs in the North Sea market. They were used mainly to ferry crews from Aberdeen to Sumburgh, where they’d transfer to S61Ns. The Puma’s windows were too small for evacuating people wearing immersion suits, especially the back ones that could be pushed out in case of emergency. Automatic emergency lighting was installed, with two special ten-man liferafts, one in the back of the starboard door, the other under a rear seat on the port side. The raft in the door was launched by an explosive charge like an aircraft starter cartridge. All this was the product of experience. There had been a ditching in the North Sea where a lanyard came loose and the dinghy drifted away empty, and the passengers were unable to cling onto the upturned hull of the helicopter. I was ridiculed when I ordered lifeboat loops – ropes slung around the hull and held in place with press studs – on all our helicopters, and they did in fact look out of place and not very pretty. But I had been in a lifeboat off the Azores when we had to put people overboard in turns in order to ease overcrowding, and it was the rope loops that made it possible. We’d had one accident on the North Sea when an S61N suffered a severe vibration – a blade pocket had come loose. The pilot, Lee Smith, reasoned that he might not make it to the beach and descended into the water in a controlled ditching. In fact he probably would have been able to make land, but nobody blamed him for ditching – I would have done the same. The aircraft turned upside down and the three people on board – it was a medical evacuation flight – had very little to cling on to. They were rescued, but after that I ordered the attachment of lifeboat loops to all helicopters. British Airways Helicopters later adopted the same system, but only after the CAA had mandated it. Eventually the loops on our helicopters were painted and made to look neater.
The 330J Puma was a little faster than the S61N, but it had drawbacks. It was nice enough to fly, but difficult for the pilots to get out of in an emergency. The undercarriage was too narrow – one of them blew over in a gale, so we had to be sure to park them facing into the forecast wind. It lacked storage space. We built a wooden mock-up at Redhill to see how we might increase the baggage capacity, but we couldn’t make a success of it. We introduced the concept of ‘offshore-alternate flight planning’, which meant the 330J could divert to a nearby platform in case of a blocked deck instead of returning to the beach as an S61N could; the lower fuel load compensated somewhat for the payload deficiency. The maintenance manuals had suffered in the translation from French to English, and the pilot’s manual was less than clear on the subject of single-engine handling. The gearbox was a weak point; gear grinding was a constant issue. The manufacturer’s stipulation for working out whether wear was within limits was to put the scurf from the oil filter onto a piece of paper, and if it covered more than so many square millimetres, you changed the box. It all seemed a bit hit and miss. We talked to Aerospatiale about the features we disliked and what we wanted done about them, and Aerospatiale began developing what they called the Super Puma to Bristows’ specification.
Then we suffered two accidents which made these improvements a matter of extreme urgency. We lost a Puma just before Christmas 1981 on a Shell contract at Kuala Belait, in Brunei. It was flown by a chap called Richard Brown, and killed twelve people. They found enough wreckage in the jungle to establish that the gearbox had seized. While the Brunei investigation was un
der way, we lost a wonderful pilot called Ben Caesar in a training accident at Aberdeen. I went up there in the company HS125 with Alastair Gordon, and we drove to the accident site, in a field just over the airport perimeter, in a Land Rover. There was nothing left but a smouldering pile of wreckage. I was always badly affected by accidents, but that one shook me more than most, perhaps because it seemed so unnecessary. Ben Caesar had been converting a Wessex pilot onto the Puma and was simulating an engine failure on take-off. The helicopter was climbing away normally with one engine idling when the good engine failed at 200 feet. They went into autorotation but landed heavily, and the undercarriage legs were driven up through the sponsons. Each sponson contained a fuel cell, which exploded on impact. They had no chance to escape the fire.
I ordered all the Pumas off the North Sea and flew to Aerospatiale’s headquarters in Marignane, near Marseilles, with George Fry and Alastair Gordon. I made my feelings plain to the Aerospatiale board – the redesigned Puma was a matter of the first importance. It had to be bigger, it had to be better, and it had to be designed so that the undercarriage legs would not rupture the fuel cells in a hard landing. On the way home in the 125 I said I didn’t think they’d listened to a word I’d said, but Alastair said no, he thought they’d been very impressed by my forceful presentation. And so it turned out. François Legrand, who ran the helicopter division of Aerospatiale, took our suggestions very seriously. A few months later I was invited back to Marignane to see a mock-up of the Super Puma. It was moving along the right lines, but I told them I must have a minimum of nineteen passengers. Less than a year later, he called me.