Dibble&Grub and Blacksheep,
After a crash - ‘‘Forget the HF radios etc - you will never get them to work’’.
Please Sir, I did – I did - and it got us out of the Sumatran jungle one day. Mind you - not that we’d have been missed for too long.
Bristow Helicopters, Djambi Sumatra, early 70’s. Two of us jumped into a Wessex 60 (ex RBMR Blacksheep) and set off for a new Total oil rig site, about an hour away.
Tony S, the pilot, dropped me off at the site and headed for the river to pick up under-slung fuel drums. About ten minutes later he returned and went into a hover over the log ‘heli-pad’. Tail rotor drive lets loose and he started spinning at about 50 feet – spectacular! Down he came on the logs, and rolled.
End result, after the blades had disintegrated and flown over my head - one very sorry looking Wessex.
So there we were, out in the jungle, base camp oblivious to our little event and us not expected back for twelve hours, at which point the other Wessex may come looking for us. We needed some attention before that, at least Tony did, but the problem was - getting a message out.
I’d fitted an HF in Singapore – so there was a good chance I could un-fit it. A pair of bolt cutters were found from the riggers (subtlety wasn’t part of the plan) and, within 30 minutes, out came the HF wiring harness and racks.
Plug in the boxes and control head, on top of a D6 Caterpillar, string a wire ‘antenna’ across to the nearest tree, connect to the Cat battery, connect a headset to loose wires with masking tape, flick the PTT wire against the Cat, cross fingers - and talk.
‘Djambi, Djambi, Hotel Vodka’. (The two Wessex were Hotel Whisky and Hotel Vodka.)
‘Hotel Vodka, Djambi. Go ahead’. Bloody Hell - it worked.
An hour later Tony, with only a broken wrist, was on his way back to Djambi.
Mind you – do the same with an Air Transport Aircraft – Mmm – possible.
Picky of Hotel Vodka’s last flight at;
http://209.196.171.35/article_tonystafford.htm