LOG Sri Lanka day 4 (4-10-2023)

[patrick dirksen]

Hi all,

Again an early start, which was quite rough after yesterdays celebrations of the ‘non-alcoholic day’…. But it was for a good reason, as we should be in time for some flying activity. That didn’t work out unfortunately, but the visit was still very much worth it.

SLAF Hingarukgoda

9 squadron:
SAH-621 Mi-35V std, 9 sq mks, *c/n 087352
SAH-623 Mi-35P std, 9 sq mks, c/n 34012403019
SAH-626 Mi-35P pr, no mks
SAH-628 Mi-35V std, 9 sq mks, *c/n 220991
SAH-633 Mi-24P std, 9 sq mks, *c/n 3532432622864
SAH-636 Mi-24P std, 9 sq mks, c/n (35324325)21254

7 squadron:
SHT-556 B.206B-3 *c/n 3499, see remark below
SHT-557 B.206B-3 maintenance, c/n 3451
SUH-560 B.212 c/n 35026
SUH-563 B.212 maintenance, c/n 35028
SUH-565 B.212 maintenance, c/n 31240

Elsewhere:
(CH577) OH-13H pr gate
(?) MiG-17F pr, should be either CF902 or CF903

* Means the c/n comes from the maintenance board.

The two squadrons based here don’t have too many helicopters, so it was quality over quantity. But quality was very good. First we visited 9 squadron, where one Mi-35 was put in front of the hangar with all different armaments around it. There was even live ammo for the cannon that we could have a look at (and hold!). Next we went to 7 squadron, who did two flights with a Bell 206 for us, including a really low fly-by followed by a hover with us posing in front of it. Nice service. The Bell 206’s have a different colourscheme compared to my first visit in 2011, so that was nice from the photographers point of view. And after a while we realised that SUH-556 is actually a new one for the SLAF. It has been bought second hand in the USA (former N2187P) and has only been taken on charge last year, so a nice update for the databases. Interesting choice of serial though, as there already was a CH556 that was written off in 1984. As far as I know, this is the first time an old serial is actually reused.
It is funny to see by the way that not only active or stored aircraft are reserialled, but also preserved aircraft. The preserved Hind was still carrying SAH-4406 in 2011, when it was already preserved, and is now displaying the new serial system.

Here I also managed to get a confirmed list of tie ups between the different serial series of the Bell 212s, some of which weren’t known yet. There is still one strange gap though.
CH537 – SUH-4104 – SUH-537
CH540 – SUH-4109 – SUH-540 (long term rebuild after being damaged by LTTE in 2007)
CH542 – SUH-4101 – SUH-542 (travelling exhibit after crash 11-08-2006)
CH547 – SUH-4106 – SUH-547
CH548 – SUH-4103 – SUH-548
CH560 – SUH-4110 – SUH-560
CH563 – SUH-4111 – SUH-563
CH565 – SUH-4102 – SUH-565
CH566 – SUH-4105 – SUH-566
As you can see, apart from SUH-4108 (which adds up to 13 and therefor never existed) there is no SUH-4107. I have a note that this could possibly have been allocated to CH538, that crashed in 2000, but we never found a sign of that helicopter and official lists also don’t have a SUH-538. Any further information would be very welcome!
Furthermore some additional info I got later during the trip is that the crash date of B.212 CH536 was 16-6-1991 (only the year was known so far).

Regarding the B.206 fleet also some more additional info was gained, apart from the “discovery” of SUH-556. SUH-551 was written off in a crash on 25-5-2016, SUH-552 was written off on 27-4-2022 and SUH-558 was damaged on 24-4-2016. The training they do is rather dangerous, that’s clear.
Furthermore according to a Sri Lankan book with crash victims CH555 was written off on 27.5.84 and CH556 on 30.11.84, while these are the other way around in most databases and other sources on the web!

Finally some conflicting information regarding the Mi-24s. The maintenance board gives for SAH-629 c/n 3534624611843 while the board in 2011 gave it ending in 845. And the same problem for SAH-632, which is now given as 3532432521381 where in 2011 the last bit was 384. Surely one of the versions is a spelling error (in one other c/n on the board a digit was missing, human errors can be made), but which version is correct…? And an update regarding the SAH-638: it is in the books as ‘handed over to DSCSC at Sapugaskanda’. This one used to be stored at Katunayake.

When done here, we went for an extensive lunch in the same restaurant we stopped two days ago. Rumour was our guide gets a good provision when bringing a group…. After that it was another three hours drive to our hotel for the coming three nights. This was supposed to be the same hotel we stayed our first night, but as we were quite disappointed about the quality of that one, 4Aviation had arranged another place to stay. Getting there proved to be more difficult than expected as the monsoon had caused many roads to flood, including the small sidestreets around our hotel. Regular cars, tuktuks and flipflops made sure everybody (and the luggage) got to the hotel in the end though. And luckily this one turned out to be better indeed. What followed was another evening with good food and lots of beer.

That’s all folks!

Patrick Dirksen
Tristar Aviation