At the request of SP here are some phots from the family album.
They were all taken during Father's tenure as CO of the SAR flight RNAS Ford 1953-55. Westland license built Dragonfly with very little power and no hinge offset on the rotorhead, note the CofG control ballast weights on the transportation joint. With Meteors, Wyverns, Fireflies, Vampires & Seafuries in the parish they were a busy outfit.
The scoop net was designed as Dad had no wish to share the tiny S51 cockpit/cabin with the not-so-recently deceased it kept the crew together in the aircraft during the pickup and came in handy for recovery of incapacitated victims. The stretcher was designed for transfer of casualties between ships.
The low power reserves dictated that most operations had to be carried out IGE but with a low disc loading the downwash (see pic 4)was not an issue and this made netting considerably easier than on the more powerful and heavier machines it was later used on.
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2 Dad's favourite crewman CPO Jan Lock a WWII vintage Swordfish TAG who knew what he doing and navigated with a "Bigsworth board"
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It is staggering how capable the new SAR machines are by comparison. the courage of the crews remains the same and have my utmost respect, keep up the good work
Some more pictures
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These last two are caption competition fodder for H&S at work
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