estepo. teeth-memories!
It must have been mid 78, I was standing on the raised AMH luxury platform (pictured in an early post 431 next to G-BAKU) working on a tail rotor . Our training machine Bell 47 G5A G-BBRI was working away on the other side of the airfield. For some reason the CAA had decided that tax payer’s money would be well spent teaching one of their senior office clerks how to fly a helicopter. Garry was banking the cheques.
Anyway all was peaceful, with Kate Bush gently reverberating around the hangar, when the steady whirring of Romeo India changed to a series of muffled crumps, followed by silence. TRC and I looked at each other, downed tools, and we went over to the door to see what had happened.
Sirens were blaring and the crash truck was on it’s way . The student was practicing sloping ground landings and had touched a blade. When the crash truck arrived the pilot had his chin touching the end of his nose, and was scratching around in the remains of the cockpit. It transpired that he wasn’t badly injured, he was just looking for his teeth !