In June 1976 I was asked to go to Malvern to assess the froward looking FLIR fitted to XW234. The resident pilot was a mate of mine so he showed me the kit.
The TV screen was in the cockpit in front of the pilot and for this trip I was going to have the screens in. As the camera was fitted in the hole where the load pole went through they had jacked the aircraft to give everybody room to work. Even more space was available when they retracted the undercarriage. Everything worked so the they gave it back to the ground crew and it was taken outside. They then switched it on again. There was a beautiful picture of the back of the nosewheel. It would only work if the gear was retracted.
The plot was for me to fly it down to Odiham for the wheels to look at it. I started it up, lifted it into the hover and retracted the undercarriage so we could see forwards, only forward as it was fixed.. With Mike as shotgun I started to fly and navigate the system and was lost soon after we crossed the airfield boundary. A rough S/E heading enabled us top pick up the M4 and when this came into view I followed it. None of this keeping right when following a line feature; I had it right in the middle. More by luck then judgement I managed to fly it to Odiham.
Part of it was to try an approach and landing so I did a direct approach to the taxiway by our dispersal. Just by my aiming point they had set up a tactical encampment and the station commander and wheels were showing some VIPs around. They looked up and there was this Puma on late finals with the undercarriage up!
The TV screen was full of people waving and jumping up and down only stopping when I lowered the gear in the hover.
That afternoon I took some of them on a trip so that they could see it in action. Unfortunately as the camera was fixed one had to keep swinging the nose to get some peripheral vision so half of them got airsick.
Mike took the aircraft back and I never heard of that project again.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 16th Mar 2020 at 11:44.