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..........Bristow Base: Australia.

A large and complicated group of operations which can best be covered in
one lump. Most of the information on Australian operations came from a
1988 "Aircraft Illustrated" which my wife had saved! So thanks to her, thanks
to the original writer, Tony Holmes, thanks to the aussies who contributed to
the original article, Captains Jim Gumley, Steve Pearson, ops manager Wayne
Sibley, Captain Max Woolf, Bill Wigley ( Woodside Heliport Supervisor) and
engineers Eric Dibdin and Rory Crossland and of course "Aircraft Illustrated".

The company, Mayne-Bristow, was formed back in 1967
when Mayne Nickless Ltd of Australia joined forces with
UK-based Bristow Helicopters. Most of the subsequent
operations were operated from bases in the North-West
with its initial contract supporting the Woodside/ Burmah
Oil drillship Investigator, being fulfilled by a single Wessex,
VH-BHL ( G-AVEW ) crated out from Britain.

These pictures show Wessex G-AXPJ
and G-BGER en-route to Australia.
Other types operated were Bells 205,
206, 212, 47, Sikorsky S61 and S76, plus
A.S.330 Puma and A.S.332 Super Puma.


The S-61 was severly effected by the heat and its load was
reduced by 150lb for every degree above 27C, so it was
replaced by the Puma which loses no power up to 45C.
The Puma was operated as the fleet mainstay from 1979
with the first one being an ex North Sea Aircraft G-BFSV
( VH-BHO ). The fleet increased to five and at one stage
was ferrying 1200 passengers a week between Karratha
and offshore installations. The picture shows Puma VH-WOF
and Bell 212 VH-BEL. The 212s were used for general utility
work and back-ups for the Pumas. The Augusta-Bell 206s were used for geo-survey
work and harbour master duties to name but a few.

Mayne-Bristow became established at Karratha Airport in 1973 when the first of
two permanent hangers were built. As demands for its services grew, especially from
Woodside, a third hanger was added in 1981.

The company operated from many varied locations such as Jandakot, Exmouth,
Barrow Island, Derby, Port Lincoln, Ceduna, Canarvon, Broome, Port Hedland,
Wyndham and Darwin, these being within Australia plus a few exotic overseas
places such as Kupang (Indonesia), Manila (Philipines), Miri ( Sarawak) and
Anduka (Borneo).

Today the company has changed in many ways, with the most noticable being
that "Mayne" no longer appears on the aircraft. After it gave up its share in the
company, Cranley Management bought in and now owns 51% of the company
and Bristows 49%. The company is now known as Bristow Helicopters
Australia Pty.Ltd. with its administration in Perth. It has been very succesful
in setting up consortium arrangements where oil companies share helicopter
resources and this has led to the company winning the lion's share of recent
contracts. As can be seen from the pictures below, Bristow Tigers and S-76s
now fly the majority of the offshore missions.


Thanks to Mark Ogden for above pic courtesy of Helicopter World.
Another contract won was a Department of Defence
award for the provision of dedicated search and rescue
helicopters using Bell 212s.



This photo from Pete Cawthorne shows the Varanus
Island base, NW Australia (not far from Barrow Island).
Pete adds - Bristow formed an alliance supporting several
companies. The 206L3 was based on Varanus, 3 x S76A+
and 2 x AS330J Pumas were based on Barrow Island,
and 1 AS332L at Karratha, although the machines were moved around to fit the
workload. 2 on, 2 off based in Perth. Brilliant fishing, diving etc. Some bloody
big sharks though! At first there was a B206, VH-BEK, s/n 274, which had
followed me from Duri via Redhill! It later turned up in the next hangar to me
when I was working in Queensland for a GA company!



And finally, below are some nice shots of ozzie aircraft
plus a quote " The most important fact as far as we are
concerned is that we are not just an overseas arm of
Bristows UK. We are Australians, the crews are all
Australian, the managerial staff are all Australian and the engineers are all
Australian". circa 1988. Fair Dinkum! Whatever that means.