Over the past two months the maintenance team and I have been working very hard to keep our services operational. Only one of our three helicopters was flying and it had only a handful of starts left before the engine cycled out and would need changing.
First, we carried out maintenance on the helicopter HCR (Hotel Charlie Romeo) which was due for a big inspection. Our goal was to have this heli back “in the air” before “Hotel Charlie Golf” (HCG) couldn’t make any more starts. Thanks to our great team we were able to complete HCR before HCG was due its engine change, allowing our flight operations to continue without any delays. Once HCR was “up” we started on our third machine “Hotel Charlie Yankee” (HCY) which had been sitting on the ground for quite some time. It needed to be operational again before the audit by the Indonesian aviation authorities to renew our operating certificate. This was another challenge for our maintenance team. After many early mornings and late nights, we were able to complete the maintenance in time. The inspection went well and we received our new certificate allowing us to carry out flight operations for another two years.
Maintenance work like this is interesting and a lot of fun. It allows our local mechanics to get hands on experience. It is nice to see them growing in their knowledge of the maintenance system; how to order spare parts, thinking ahead; how to find the instructions for their tasks in the Maintenance Manuals; how to perform their work safely and document what they do. This maintenance isn’t just about getting the helicopters ready to fly again, it’s a great opportunity to get to know each other
and invest in each other. We are very excited to hear that the Swiss helicopter mechanic, Patrick, is coming to help us. He and his family will be joining us later this year
Matt
Matt Matthias and Sammy Abed helps install the main rotor blade
