A couple more Wessex memories for the scrapbook:-
Wessex 1 on 771 - Always fun to park it on the spot with the exhaust facing the squadron buildings. When done with precision you could usually take out the CO's office window when the starter turbine blades shed on the next start.
Wessex 1 on Ark SAR - Much better than pinging.....the Stovies not only spoke to you but bought you beers as well !
Wessex 3 on 737 - Horrible horrible aircraft (but this memory may possibly be coloured by being thrown out of Portland when Wings thought I was knobbing his girlfriend).
Wessex V on 771 - Queen of the skies. So many people around the coast of Cornwall owe their lives to that beautiful aircraft and the amazing antics of the guys down the back of the bus. Two or more hours over the '79 Fastnet Race and the Chief got us back to shore within 100 yards of where we'd left.....all on dead reckoning!
......Leaning out of the door when the windscreen iced up
......Peeing quietly and carefully down the crafted metal tube. At least it would have been quiet if only someone had put the rubber bag back on the bottom of the pipe. Our German aircrewman was anything but quiet by the time I'd emptied my bladder all over his neck.
But my absolute favourite Wessex story comes from the "Green Parrot" at Portland (which I never flew). Tasked with flying Admirals and their white suited ADCs to and from various vessels this job could be a pain. A certain Lieutenant from Yorkshire found his oil temp rising on the trip back one day. He duly put out a Pan call and warned the crewman who was sitting down the back with an Admiral and his ADC, both wearing ear defenders and reading their ironed copy of the The Times.
Secondary indication of falling oil pressure.....pilot warns crewman of imminent ditching.......puts out a Mayday.....briefs that he'll hover for a moment whilst crewman puts passengers in the water with a dinghy. Wessex comes to hover.....crewman unstraps surprised Admiral and throws him roughly out of the door. ADC (with earduffs, therefore no comms, therefore unaware of impending doom) takes offence at losing his Admiral and starts a fight. Crewman wins....(what a surprise).....and hurls ADC into the oggin....closely followed by dinghy inflated with lanyard.
Pilot hovers clear and prepares to ditch when......astonishingly......temp begins to go down and pressure begins to rise. He tentatively tries forward flight which seems to further improve the situation. He climbs to autorotative height and nurses his stricken machine successfully back to land. Great applause for pilot.....Admiral and ADC eventually recovered by another cab.
It was quite a while later when somebody noticed that this had been the last scheduled flight for that pilot on that squadron and that he was due to leave the Navy the following week. What a stylish departure!
Cheers to the Wessex.
JerryG