Originally Posted by
treadigraph
That's it. XM296. Recall it had a green cheatline rather than blue, confirmed by an AB pic. My dusty old log says I saw it at Biggin Hill in 1983...
It then went to the US as N82D and XR442/G-HRON was used as spares to keep it airworthy with the Albany Aero Club. That's now in Bolivia... or was...
That was because it was the personal aircraft of, as Dave Reid correctly says, Flag Officer Naval Air Command, an appointment which until about the late 1970s was regarded as that of a Royal Navy Commander-in-Chief.
Traditionally, Commander-in-Chiefs' barges, their personal fast launches, had a green hull (whereas the hull of other Flag Officers' barges were dark blue) and this distinction was perpetuated in the Fleet Air Arm by the green, rather than blue, cheatline to which Dave refers on the Heron, and on the lower part of the hull on FONAC's personal helicopter, which, for a reason which has nothng to do with aviation, was always known as the "Green Parrot", as seen
here at Post #161.
Finally, if only for the fun of emphasising that some Services claim to have traditions rather than habits,
here is the confirmation that the expression the "Green Parrot" goes back over 100 years since Admiral Sir Hedworth Meux was Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth from 1912 to 1916!
Jack