Where Are They Now?Please feel free to post contact information here if you are looking for long lost friends or trying to find out what has happened to colleagues. Obituaries and condolences can be posted here too.
Chocks, yes indeed..Eric Garland!! a real gent with mammoth understatement of fact and ability. His approach in what were Dutch gale force 11 conditions into AMS resulted in little comment on the ground, other than.." your leg back then but just watch the breeze"!! Hazel was a force to be reckoned with though...on the F27, he couldn't use his shoulder straps and had to use an extension seat belt I seem to remember...winter in ABZ often saw him sitting in the LHS for the first cold sector to EDI, wearing his uniform issue flashers' mac..it made him look even larger and foreboding!! I recall my last AMS ABZ trip before moving back to "BA"...we had to shut the right engine down just north of Dogger due low oil P. Newcastle was closest so I planned the diversion with H staying silent throughout. Distance comparatives with ABZ were argued and as time marched on...we closed towards Stonehaven and ended up landing at ABZ! "Good idea for Newcastle old boy but the wife is cooking venison tonight and wouldn't miss that for the world"!!
Location: A Whilom nimble brain. With 31 million posts.
Age: 73
Posts: 3,379
Funny thing about flight inspectors. When I was buzzed while loading pax in Rotterdam, I made a fuss, but agreed to let the Dutch settle it in-house. I told the young pilot that if he'd done that in the UK, he'd be off to jail. It really was 10 minutes of madness, and it takes a lot to faze me, but he was feet from lines of pax and inches from my VHF aerial.
Anyway, a couple of years later, my diagrams were spotted by a new inspector (it may have been some sort of swat team invasion) but now they looked in disbelief at what the lad had done. I wasn't called on it, and also it was again swept under the carpet. Odd that, if it had been me, I'd have been hung from the nearest radio mast.
I flew my final line check with "Hazel" in 1978 and his briefing was along the lines of "there are three ways of flying this aeroplane!. There's the company way, the CAA's opinion of the way it should be done and my f*****g way. You're the Captain, but while I'm on board we'll fly it my f****g way - I'll take it out and you bring it back - see you on the aeroplane. Hazel took great pleasure in telling me about the occasion he force landed the Herald on route to Farnborough and how disappointed he was that the photographic aeroplane was on the wrong side when the engine blew up. I had great difficulty in keeping my concentration on the flight as the stories kept coming and were so enthralling. As we approached Amsterdam he was well into a bombing mission in a Hampden and ATC were constantly calling for us to descend. I managed to reply but we were almost at SPY before I managed to get him to start down, and naturally he had forgotten the pressurisation. I flew the return sector and on arrival at Aberdeen he told me he'd stay in the cockpit and the engineers would give him a lift to the crew room in their van. I can see him now in my mind , sitting there in his uniform jacket liberally sprinkled with fag ash and I thought that he must be suffering from an old war wound which gave him a limp and the reason for the lift. I mentioned this to Spud, who laughed and said "war wound? - he's got ingrowing toenails". It was a great pleasure and a privilige to have known and flown with Hazel and indeed many other colleagues who are sadly no longer with us - wonderful memories of a great Airline. Oh and he did sign me off!.
lights..yes, I know vividly recall Hazel's limp...and up until now, I always thought it was due to the infamous herald crash!! Toe nails...my foot!!(apols for pun). I never did a line check with H but managed to succombe to Bill Else..capt mannering for my last check..bloody Nora..it was probably the hardest check, coupled with a base check, I have ever flown. from memory, it included a NDB let down over the NH on one engine??!! I went first and Mr Dempsey followed...with somewhat disastrous results, mostly down to personality clash I believe!!
...a privealege ...for sure!!
I did my RHS base training with Bill Else, line training with Hazel, LHS conversion with Dennis Brennan, line training with Eric Franklin and final line check with Bill again. Quite a line-up.
I bet you didn't sit in the LHS (in an aircraft you have never flown) with Spud in the RHS and took off with a simulated eng fail at about 400' followed by a SE cct and go-around.
Location: A Whilom nimble brain. With 31 million posts.
Age: 73
Posts: 3,379
Quote:
with a simulated eng fail at about 400'
Siimulated? Luxury! We used to dream about only having a simulated failure.
c 1964, a certain Capt Rowly SP? of Morton's Air Services, stopped one on me in a Dak at 03 sparrow's, with a full load of newspapers. After I'd struggled to 1,000', he started it again, and nothing more was said. Seemed so normal in those days.
Upside down with spud....crew swap training on th F28.First the finger twirled then the world rotated.I was standing in the flight deck entrance,don't think spud was strapped in either.Only one of the beer drinking "ballast"from coltish all noticed,and he just raised his tinnie and cheered.
Hi - I wonder if anyone has further information about Alex Hare. I believe he was my uncle and I've been searching for him for many years. Any information would be much appreciated, thank you. Nina
In life one only comes across a handful of people that you really like and have a huge respect for. Alex was one of those. He had a wonderful personality and was one of the finest airline Captains I have ever known, borne from a huge ability and experience.
I believe he retired some 30 years ago. I wish you well in your search and please post any results here as I'm sure there will be a lot of interested people.
Yes Rivets he was. He lived near Stansted during the time he was with Air Anglia. As I've said before, call outs were never a problem for him as he could roar up the A11 to Norwich in the twinkling of an eye.
If my memory serves me right I think ( but am not sure ) that Alex came to Air Anglia from Kestrel Aviation at East Midlands. He was part of an exodus that came about when Kestrel sent their pilots in the Kestrel Dak to Norwich for Base Checks and I/R renewals with Spud because they did not at that particular time have a TRE. One can imagine that Spud made them an offer that they found difficult to refuse when he signed up their licences. As a result Air Anglia gained some very experienced skippers to say nothing of Kestrel's Chief Hostie Avril! I imagine that Harry Chang was not best pleased.
Hi guys , as a Naarfick boi , and proud possessor of 2 AA rejection letters ; I used staff stby tkts to hitch a ride on AA's LHR - NWI on both PA31 and F27s regularly in late 70's . Steve was ex RAF, posibly ex Lightnings , and kindly extended the courtesy of the RHS a few times . Does anyone remember / know him ? ( My spelling of his name may be awry )
In the attic there's probably a '' Quicker than you think '' and a '' Bigger than you think'' Tee-shirts , ... as an outsider looking in .. thanks Julie ( sure that's her name in Promotions ) C. 78 ish .
Took 16 years to get T-props and Scotland , and was with Highland Division when demonstrating the ATP on NWI routes .
Back in the 80s I got a rejection letter from Dennis somebody or other at Air UK the gist of which was that they didn't have any vacancies at the moment and as far as I was concerned, they never would. Oh well, never mind I thought, I'll give DanAir a shot although the thought of schlepping all the way to LGW didn't appeal.
Anyway the very next day another letter arrived from Air UK, this time from Jackie Starr, inviting me to an interview and sim check; couple of weeks later I was on the F27 ground school. Stayed with them until the death of buzz.
Jackie Starr; now there's a name to conjure with. I too had a rejection letter from Dennis Brennan when I applied for a FO slot in '76. Two years later I was offered a direct-entry command. The vagarities of life. Ironically, in '76 I was offered a job RHS of a Dart Herald for BIA. If I'd taken that I would have ended up with AirUK, but with about 30 months extra seniority, and pension. For those of a nostalgic bent, here's the 1978 pay scale.
I remember the Air Anglia pilots so well from the 1970's from my time with Nowich ATC. Also the very sad occasion when one of the newly married FO's wife was found electrocuted in the bath when she touched the taps in their new house in Acle. A company called By-Air ran a Cessna 337 then piloted by Andrew Goodliffe and a guy called Campion. The only pilot I haven't seen mentioned is Warwick Banks who's dad used to be the sole importer of Koni shock absorbers. Funny how you remember these useless bits of information. The AA pilots were always generous with their offers of free seats to us guys in the tower, and my PPL log book has so many names like Fawke, Sharmon, Brown, Leach, Howard, Brennan, and Hampton in it from my logging pax flying. We were a happy band in the tower when Buck Courtney was the airfield manager ably assisted by a Mr Pettifer. We used to get the usual noise complaints from folks who bought their houses on the edge of an airfield then groused about the aircraft. Happy days nonetheless.
Without intending to hijack the thread I just wondered what happened to the girls? As I was one of the 2-3 boys in the other side of the galley door I am curious as to where they are?
