Petroleum Helicopters, Inc. - Late 1970s |
Sometime in the 1970s, I became eligible to transition
into PHI's Bell 212 (See below), a twin engine "Huey" type helicopter which was used mostly for crew
changes and hauling large equipment, etc. It was also used for emergency
night flights. During this time, I did one tour of duty at St. Simon's Island
in Georgia and another where I flew for a few weeks from Atlantic City, NJ. The 212 was an instrument capable helicopter and most of the pilots were instrument
and night qualified in it. Later I became one of the emergency
night pilots in Morgan City, LA, and decided I had found my niche. The last several years with PHI, I and Billy Linker, were the night pilots on our 7 day shift at Morgan City. The night ship required 2 pilots by company policy. We went to work a sunset, when everyone else left, and we left when they came in at sunrise. A few nights we'd fly all night, but often we'd go 2-3 nights without a flight. We were just on call for any after hours emergency from medical to accidents to unexpected breakdowns on the oil rigs. One night we got a call, from a rig 175 miles away in the Gulf. We hopped over to the oil company heliport, picked up a small package of o-rings and flew them out to the rig, shut down to eat at their galley and returned to PHI, about a 3 hour round trip at our night rates of $2500 per hour. We guessed those were the most expensive o-rings in the world, but cheap compared to the $40,000 per day cost of a rig shut down. |
We also flew in injured workers to the hospitals and
flew out oil company inspectors, with their drug dogs, for surprise inspections.
The nose on those dogs was amazing. Once a dog went into the restroom
and barked at the ceiling. Removing a ceiling tile exposed a stash.
Another time the dog grabbed a guys pocket. He had one marijuana seed
in his pocket. Anyone caught, flew back in with us to be fired the next day. |