Gulf Helicopters, Qatar

[sharkbait]

No reason to suffer from performance anxiety there Red Dawg - just light the fuse and see what happens!

 

Went to the annual Remembrance Day Dinner at the Legion last night - good Piper and a speech by an RSM of the Genadier Guards - which was short and to the point as one would expect. Ran into a fellow who had been in Kuwait with the RCEs - he left just before we heaved over the horizon - he had some funny stories about Chili Air. Apparently they did not have the same 99.8 dispatch reliability that Can Air enjoyed. He refered to PISCO as "The South American WMD" - said he had the wound stripes to prove it! I believed him.

[Reddog]

Yah, when you don't have that ol' profit motive motivating you it can turn your operation into a gov't flying club. Kind of like HSO in Iran.

[gwk]

Local newspaper is www.gulf-times.com Not alot there but is interesting if you are planning a trip there.

In the 5 years I spent there, there were 6 different Chief Pilots, just as many different Chief Training Captains, and probably more Chief Engineers, in other words, staff retension was a big problem.

The local pilots are an arrogant bunch, when they show up, and might do 2 of their assigned 3 flights before making some excuse, and disappearing for the rest of the day, leaving you with an additional flight if you weren,t slick enough to slide out, unnoticed.

Expect to fly your a## off, 100 hours every 28 days.

7 months of HOT wx, 5 months of nice wx, no A/C in the machines.

The exchange rate is fixed 360 riyals to the USD, so if your not an American, it,s lost alot of it,s appeal.

Traffic is terrible, the cost of living is terrible,and getting worse, inflation is double digits.

The old country charm of Qatar has slowly been lost, and now it is more like Singapore, or Dubai, but on a smaller scale, so the cultural aspect has been lost.

Would I go back, no, but I had a good time overall, met some good people, and moved on.

 

Best of luck.

[CWNL]

Thanks GWK, I would like to ask you some more questions offline if your available?

[412driver]

I worked there briefly and didn't go back after the war started.........

 

The arabs treat you like #### and the money is so so. they make you fly your @ss off as previously stated.

 

 

I was thinking about going back but after talking to friends that are still there it has gotten much worse so i decided to pass. they are losing engineers like crazy. at one point they had 7 of their 12 a/c US!!!

 

from what i hear aerogulf treats you better but albert ross could fill you in on that........