Thanks from Dennis K
Hallo guys & gals out there,
I've just tuned in to the posts this afternoon, and have to post in to say a big thanks for all those encouraging notes.
Knowing how badly I got that particular display wrong, and after so many years and over 1200 safe displays, I'm feeling more than a whisker subdued just now, and have spent the last two weeks, trying to decide whether it would be proper for me to display or even fly again.
Then I read a couple of dozen 'get back in the saddle' ...'we are still with you' words and I'm re-thinking hard.
I can't really run through the long sequence or errors that caused the flight to go so badly wrong, but rather than take up space on our pp site, I have set out the sad story for the aviation newspaper I write for. But it is 1500 words long!
Basically I'm all in one piece, with just a couple of loosened teeth, and my BUPA doctor tells me I have a bruised Coccyx, ditto a Sacrioliac Joint and an old injury to a vertibrae has re-surfaced. I am walking with a little difficulty, but apparently they heal themselves with time, so I can now catch up on my reading.
I have to accept the points made by Snarlie, but would like him/her to know that my display sequence has been specifically approved every year by the CAA display DAE's following a specific test flight and ditto the display manoeuvres by the engineering division of the Enstrom Helicopter Corporation. In 34 years display flying, I have not heard of a single adverse engineering report following any type I have earlier displayed.
As many of you know, I'm an avid safety supporter and would cease display flying instantly if I ever felt any machine I had flown had been compromised in that area.
Just to close, I'm sorry to dis-appoint so many out there for getting it all so wrong, but I am mighty thankful I was flying a type that proved so crashworthy and survivable.
Thanks again to all my well wishers. Your words couldn't have come at a better time for me.
Safe flying,
Dennis Kenyon.