Forget
Youve made my day, I was there with many good boys including Ken Foster who I believe is no longer with us . When I get home will look out some pics.
Kebab was a goat.We had an enormous dog as well, can't remember his name.
Regarding VP registrations, when I went to Morrocco with a 204 and an Alouette I got my 204 licence in the post, I had never seen one but no problem.
Seem to have mislaid my Bermudan pilots licence, issued by post in 1968 but did come across my first Iranian temporary permit to fly, also 1968, issued in Teheran by the Iranian Ministry of Roads!!
I value my Upper Volta Commerical License .....number 29 I think it was.....will have to dig it out of the Attic. I flew every single one of the helicopters in the country....all three of them. Later followed by Iranian, Bermudan, Indonesian, British, and Nigerian particulars in addition to my US license. One looks like a credit card, one is still tied with string, the other comes in a very, very, very expensive white booklet, and the rest are paper or cardboard.
Perhaps this isn’t quite the correct place to post this but I believe it will interest a lot of current Bristow and ex-Bristow people out there. The recent tragic earthquake in Indonesia, centered near the town of Padang, brought back a lot of memories.
My first posting after joining Bristow was the Rio Tinto Operation at Padang in the early 70’s where the crew were; Chunky Lord (CP), Klaus Linke, Yves Le Roy, Keith Wilkinson (CE), Roger Tingley, Mike McCormack and Martin Boardley. Over time, others that came to the operation were Bill Pollard (who replaced Chunky as CP), Chris Dillon, (who replaced Keith as CE) and Chas Newport (who replaced Chris as CE). Another name I remember as an engineering leave relief was Pat Bolt.
The helicopters were a couple of 206A’s (one Bell and one Agusta if I recall correctly) that were fitted with water-methanol injection to improve performance. Another 206A had been involved in an accident prior to my arrival when, taking-off from a stream, it is believed the rear of one skid got caught under a rock and flipped the helicopter over. No one was hurt but the helicopter was written-off.
Another name that comes to mind is Barry Newman (is that correct?), who was the Area Manager based in Jakarta. He was flying to Padang on a Merpati Airlines Viscount that tried multiple approaches into Tabing in bad weather but then crashed into the sea off Padang killing everyone onboard. The helicopters would also occasionally have difficulty getting into Tabing during bad weather, pilots had to be very mindful of the high ground surrounding the airport on two sides. To make the situation worse, the people at the airport tower had a strange habit of switching off the NDB in really bad weather thinking that nobody would be flying in conditions like that!
This was a seismic operation and all of the work was conducted from temporary field camps. Padang was only a base that was used for maintenance and this was done in the Indonesian Air Force hangar at Tabing Airport. Domestic accommodation at Padang was the Rio Tinto staff house, known simply as ‘The Blue House’ because of the exterior colour.
When the number of people at Padang exceed the capacity of The Blue House, the overflow was housed in local hotels and one of these was the Mariani International Hotel. Now remember, this was the early 70’s and ‘Mariani International Hotel’ didn’t quite match expectations that the name conjured up, but it was clean and comfortable. The hotel was owned by Mrs. Mariani who would meet every arriving flight and ask everyone “Do you need a hotel?” She did this constantly and must have recognized most of us after a while but that never stopped her asking, you couldn’t help but admire her.
So it was with a great deal of sadness that I learned that one of the many buildings destroyed by the earthquake was the Mariani International Hotel. My thoughts and condolences go out to the fine people of Padang and West Sumatra.
I was also doing Seismic in Iran in the late 70's at Seis 4 after coming from Zagros. I seem to remember people like Martin Boardley, Malcolm Coppinger, Izzie Freedman, Turkey Heirs(?), unfortunately it has dissolved into the nether.... We moved around a fair bit doing the same thing slinging a Labbo around and tons of dynamite through mountains for Prakla... Ken Osbourne later became CP with Peter Harris as CE or EIC. Eric Smith even came and joined us as well!! A couple of really good fillies there as in Willie Canlas for one.
As life was a bit monotonous we were always playing practical jokes on people - we decided that our CP Ken Osbourne should get up early one morning even though he was due to lay in - we started a Cobra drill in his tent at 5 a.m. to much swearing and shouting. However two days later he then flew a 212 over our tents at 5.30 a.m. and blew us all into the surrounding sand whilst blissfully asleep!! Aaaah those were the days. Gachs Saran - now theres a nother story
I see you too worked with Chris Dillon. Our families were great friends & sad to say Chris died tragically in West Australia quite a few years ago now.
Hi everyone.
I have just found this site, and have joined because I can add some history to some of these pictures.
The picture of the wessex and 58T shown on page 27 is correctly stated as being on the Redhill ramp, and I can remember the day very well. The 58T was the first completed conversion, and was being flown by a sikorsky test pilot, who seemed to spend most of his time flying at a high speed backwards.
The 58Ts had been purchased from the German Army, and were flown across to redhill in original Piston engine configuration, by a team of Bristow Pilots. There were some old engineers with misty eyes at the sound of those big double bank radials as the aircraft came in to land.
The first aircraft failed its performance criteria after conversion to the PT6, and Sikorskys only comment was "oh, we thought that might happen". I remember AB stomping around saying "who advised me to buy these things" (the cleaned up version)
I in the mean time was struggling to get the Wessex, G-BAWJ up and running, this aircraft has featured well in this thread, first appearing on page 1, as the one being lifted out of the Indonesian Jungle. We repaired it at Redhill, taking Two years, owing to supply problems.
It was then flown out to Lagos by Jock Cameron, where it received its Nigerian certification as 5N-AJK. It was then flown down to Port Harqourt by I think Nick Wiles. (he of 5N-AIR fame, as one of the few people to walk out unscratched from a main rotor blade failure)
After about 18 months of good service, it was involved in a roll over accident due to ground resonance. The mind plays funny tricks at these times, I was in the office doing paperwork, when I heard the aircraft taking off, and then a large thump, followed by silence, I wandered out to see what had happened, and then went back in the office to carry on work, it was then that it hit me, I thought WTF, and rushed out to find Chief Pilot Mark Wilkins stopping the Nigerian Fire Department from covering everyone in foam. The left hand oleo leg landed up about 6 inches from the left ear of a senior Shell Dutch manager who was sitting in the left hand seat.
John Baker had been on a pair of steps, inspecting a Whirlwind tail Rotor, when a piece of Main Rotor Blade whistled past his head.
The aircraft was again rebuilt in PH by a team under Doug West, and returned to service.
Its final demise was after I left PH, when a tail Servo motor made a break for freedom, and tail rotor control was lost.
If ever an aircraft was jinxed, this was it, though to knowledge nobody was seriously hurt in any of its Three accidents.
Hope this was of interest at not Too boring.
I was also at Redhill the day the H34's arrived from Germany to be converted. Spent quite a time on the 58T program as a sheety and an A&C at the end. Went to Morocco with a 58T for Sun Oil for 3 months before being sent to Aberdeen for corrective training !!!
Ah yes....I remember the arm twisting sales pitch Mike Norris gave me on joining the Elite Fleet! Why Captain.....you've got all the top shelf kit....three BarAlts and Decca! See here...we even have provided SAS just to make your life like a holiday.
SASless, for once I have to disagree, I went to Doha with one of these pieces of junk and if we had to do an underslung to the rig we did it at three in the morning. The only good things about them were the crews. We came back by main line and sold ours to Court at Sharrza(spelling).
I think Alan knew about it but you never know.
If I remember correctly, this was Bristows first S61. It was obtained accident damaged, along with a couple of 205s from an Italian company, that went bust because of the accident.
After its rebuild in the old Redhill hanger, it was found that it could not be removed from the hanger, so two trenches had to be dug in the ground to lower it enough to pass under the top part of the door.
Dave B - That aircraft was infact G-AZDC 61424 which was purchased as a wreck from Elivie (formerly I-EVMA) and rebuilt at Redhill. That was the first BHL S61 in the UK and was purchased around May 1971.
G-AZRF 61473 was the third for BHL in the UK, formerly PK-HBT operating in Natuna Besar and arrived around April/May 1972.
The second was G-AZNE 61467, which was later lost after buzzing round the North Sea for a few hours before it sank.
There were pics of G-AZDC and the floor trenches on SkyWeaver, perhaps Tail-Take-Off can stick them up here?
I distinctly remember the morning we went to move the S61 out of the hangar(I was on the head to turn the blades) - lots of head scratching and swearing. We then released the pressure from the oleos - then the tires - more swearing and head scratching. Voila - dig two trenches !!!
Even then we had to cut out the front hangar panels to allow the beanie and Pitot to pass through.
Further to the above posts G-AZNE was also ex Elivie. See below:
However was it not the case that the first 2 S61's operated by the company (perhaps while G-AZDC was still in the hangar) were VR-BDN & VR-BDO in malasia? (Later to become G-BBGS & G-BDRH). Or was G-AZRF the first to be operated in Indonesia as PK-HBT? I'm sure someone can answer this.
My "records" show VR-BDN & VR-BDO as being in transit from USA to Malaysia in Jan 1970 where they remained, working for Esso / Elf until August 1972.
In October 72 they were transferred to Singapore
61470 (VR-BDN) became 9M-ARV
61471 remained as VR-BDO and they worked for Conoco
They then appear in Natuna Besar and on to Kuantan with Conoco up till May 73.
9M-ARV went back to Esso Malaysia in June 73 and came to the UK in May 75 where it seems to have operated as 9M-ARV out of Aberdeen for some time.
It became G-BDRH in Feb 76.
VR-BDO became UK based G-BBGS in August 73
These were the first two S61 with Bristow, my earlier info refers to S61 debut in the UK for Bristow.
Hope this is of interest (or have you fallen asleep already!!)
Can I take me Anorak off again now, its a bit warm, even for Shetland !!!!
Great to see the pics of the old S61's again. I was at Redhill at the time of the Elivie take-over. What was to become G-AZNE was flown into Redhill by Alistair Gordon and I think Ken Bradley. It spent some time there before departing with Davy Parker and co to Great Yarmouth where it worked for some months before coming up to Aberdeen. So it was the first S61 to operate in the UK followed by G-AZDC after the rebuild which I was on with John Gordon Staples. It came up to Aberdeen in early 1972.
The other machines taken in from Italy were two 214's and two 206's.
One of the 214's was flown up to Liverpool and we put it in a few crates and it was shipped to Peru. I think Ernie Patrick was one of the engineers that went out with it.
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