G-BALT
Hi 'S' ... still avidly following the thread's progress through the times & years and enjoy some of the earlier types I flew cropping up. Now G-BALT .... ah yes I remember her well. Made my first rotary solo on LT at Shoreham on 5th June 1973. Seem to remember her serial as 127. How daft is that! Capt Bill Bailey later sent me on my qualifying X country on LT .... Shoreham to Sunderland and back! There was an air show there.
The LHR pic was probably taken on my visit September 21st. I sold the machine there to a David Mappin who then leased it back to Spooner Aviation. Such happy and mostly profitable days. In total I sold 138 Enstrom models between 1972 & 1982 after which I left the Spooner business to form my first company, Skyline Helicopters at WAP. Sales were easier then as there was no Robinson or B47 competition and little from Hughes.
In fact the now well-known, G-AYTF ex Colin Chapman was my first heli purchase for Skyline. See earlier notes. She languished in my back garden for a month as I worked out my notice from Southernair who acquired the Spooner business a year earlier.
Then just out of interest, the new business lost two helis on the same day and within minutes of each other. The sad date was April 1st 1982. The local rag's headline was ... "Riddle of double 'copter crash at Shoreham!" That wonderful guy John ZZ was the first to put down on Truleigh Hill following a control malfunction. Number two 'roll over' accident, was the machine that was sent to the site to bring John ZZ and his student back to the airfield. I then jumped into the company Jetranger to bring all three back and as I surveyed the double wreck on the 'Motte & Bailey' sloping ground practice area, how well I recalled saying to myself ... "this is not a good time to have a third accident!" Such memories, although not always good.
Keep the buzz going guys.
Dennis Kenyon.