Sad news from Zim this morning - Group Captain (Rtd) Bill Sykes died yesterday morning after a long illness. Bill clocked up 1500 hours on Vampires with the Rhodesian Air Force; moved on to Hunters as a weapons instructor, then another 1500 hours on Alouette III between '74 and '79 - the hottest time in the Rhodesian bush war, when Alouettes were right in the thick of it.
Bill was a fine artist; and made the documentary 'Pursuit of a dream' about his friend Jack Malloch's (of Afretair fame) mission to restore a Rhodesian Air Force Spitfire -
- link to the film here. Jack was filming the last sequence of the film from a Vampire chase plane when Jack took his Spit into a Charlie Bravo and never came back.
Bill's Pa was a pre-war Hurricane pilot and Chief Flying Instructor at Mt Hampden during the war, and a settler-farmer thereafter. Bill's son, William, is also a very accomplished wildlife and aviation artist.
RIP, Bill. A fine life, well lived. Blue skies.
Below, a painting by Bill Sykes, commissioned by Jack Malloch, described thus in an email to me by Bill last year:
"The painting is four in one – same aircraft at
1. Start of attack;
2 Turning in;
3 down the dive, and
4. Pulling out with glycol tank hit (far left).
Jack wanted the Mk 22 in the painting as opposed to the Mk IX. (5 in 1)"