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John thanks. Bombay; charming place ..
but great food! Please excuse the trivial nature of my questions but roughly how far offshore were the rigs you were servicing. Its just that I have very little knowledge of the Irish offshore 'landscape' as it were.
Bravo
500! A great piece of investigatory nostalgia.
You are indeed quite right as the scheme in John's photo is certainly that of Greenlandair. If, as John suggests, it was an IH 61 then perhaps they had bought this from Greenland?
Either way its a great find and well worth posting (below):
Greenlandair's S61N at Shannon on 19th June 1982 (Photo: Fergal Goodman)
Another 61 at Shannon, in more recent times, was BLY:
Irish Helicopters S61N EI-BLY at Shannon on 12th July 1991
Any clues as to the significance of the wording atop BLY's cabin?
Now I
do have a story about Shannon and the Colonel.
In the post-Ferranti days Col. Bob flew for a season with the race horse trainer Vincent O'Brien (EI-BFK), this would have been 1980-81. He also assisted another one of his clients, a lawyer by the name of Brendan O'Mahony, who bought an ex-Ferranti-managed craft (EI-BHI). BHI used to be serviced at Shannon (SRS I think) and on one such occasion Bob was staying at the Shannon Shamrock Hotel while he awaited whatever maintenance was being performed on the craft. Brendan, by the way, was another great employer of the term 'craft' when referring to helicopters - delivered of course with his broad
'Hoir-rish haccent'.
Well, there was the Colonel minding his business (yeah right) and pottering about the hotel (mainly between bars) when he heard a pussycat's meow! Concerned, he raised this with the duty manager who quickly assured him that there was nothing to worry about and that it was probably the bagpipes from Bunratty Castle (genuine answer according to the Colonel).
The following day the meows persisted and so did the Colonel this time raising the matter with the general manager and insisting that he was well able to distinguish between the sound of the pipes and a potentially stricken cat (although he admitted to me later that he knew some players of the pipes whose skills may have challenged this claim).
To cut a fairly long but interesting story down to PPRuNe length, the Colonel was unrelenting in his concern for this invisible cat and which culminated in the hotel bringing in builders to dig up part of the main reception floor. Once through the floor the builders discovered a pipe along which the previously muted meows were now being transmitted with considerable clarity. Trouble was, as they started digging (and Bob indicates that they used a small pneumatic drill) the cat retreated further along the conduit! The end result was a scar several metres long across the main floor of the Shamrock's reception.
Needless to say the Colonel was not especially in favour with the hotel management who considered this a waste of time and money as well as a massive inconvenience to the smooth operation of the hotel. Several of the guests were also aware of the fact that the Colonel was at the centre of the disruption to the hotel lobby and he evidently received a number of condemning glares!
On or about the third day of this pussy-hunt with the jack hammering halted and receptacles of milk and fish placed at the last point in the pipe to be breached, the pussy emerged with the help of the Colonel's diligent (and no doubt malt-whiskey-fuelled) coaxing. At the time of the cat's emergence a troupe of American tourists (who had been staying in the hotel and who were vaguely aware of the scenario but, like several others, thought the Colonel was slightly off his rocker) returned from searching for leprechauns (or whatever it is that American tourists do in Shannon) and were stirred by the Colonel's persistence and by the end result ie. the salvation of the pussy!
Cutting out more details; the Americans 'adopted' godfather Bob throughout the remainder of their stay at the Shamrock, inviting him to dinner at Bunratty Castle and hosting him at the Shamrock's bar in the evenings (I think he declined to engage in their day-time pursuits). Before leaving they had a pewter tankard engraved with the wording 'For Pussy Smith' and presented this to him over another dinner.
The local Shannon rag got a hold of the story and attributed the efforts to the hotel's general manager and which helped considerably in pacifying the hotel's owner who, until then had been a keen member of the anti-Smith brigade. A new batch of tourists (having read the local papers) started asking the manager for details of the rescue effort and he became something of a hero among the Stateside tour companies who began recommending the Shamrock and its benevolent 'cat loving' manager. Bob was pleased because this spin helped console the previously fuming manager.
Bob had many stories, in fact wherever he went it seemed something extraordinary invariably happened but, even as a fairly trusting youngster, I sometimes had my doubts about his many escapades wondering how much embellishing was involved!
Some months after this episode (during a school break from the UK) I arrived with the Colonel in Shannon as he had promised me an evening at Bunratty. Moments after we arrived at the Shamrock the general manager cried out from a distance 'Pussy Smith!' and gave him the embrace of a long-lost brother. I got to hear the full story from the manager's mouth and was deeply satisfied to discover that the Colonel's ramblings were all in order! An enjoyable evening at Bunratty (a tad touristy but fun nonetheless) and my first encounter with the 'mead' which, to the teenage palate, was an ideal alcoholic beverage.
The Shannon Shamrock Hotel
Sav