.
Lol! Great stuff
I.I. Alan was of course well known for his habit of 'having a go' and I suppose that most of us would do exactly the same if we were in his shoes.
Crossing Gatwick could, as you say, often involve delays and it was for this reason that my godfather regularly arranged for Gatwick's controllers to visit the beehive (usually on Saturdays) with their families in order to take them for a spin. Over the years the LGW controllers developed an informal 'priority arrangement' for Ferranti's fleet based on their familiarity with the airfield's operations given that it was their home base. In practice this meant that Ferranti aircraft would be allowed slightly more leniency (pilot's discretion in passing behind a landing craft) when it came to crossing the runway.
Gatwick controllers didn't need to memorise Ferranti's registrations because, along with white gloves and highly polished shoes, Col. Bob insisted that whenever a Ferranti aircraft initiated comms with a new frequency their message was to be prefixed with the words "This is Ferranti Helicopter G- ...." and woe betide anyone who failed to observe this procedure!
Earlier in the thread I related an incident between the Colonel and Douglas Bunn and which I suppose was shortly after Bunn had bought the
Dancer.
The Sopwith Files: Tommy Junior
For the benefit of some of the younger Rotorheads we are of course talking about the son of British aviation pioneer Sir Thomas Sopwith (the son of yet another Thomas Sopwith and there are yet futher 'Tom Sopwiths' related to the family and who are still about today) the man behind the production of Britain's foremost fighter aircraft, the Camel and the Hurricane, during two world wars.
Like his father, Tommy Jr. was interested in yachting but later progressed to powerboats
(sensible chap). He was also a keen racing driver along with other private flyers including Alan Mann, Ken Gregory and of course our friend Colin Chapman who bought Douglas Bunn's 206 mentioned above.
I don't know whether it was because of the strong association between helicopter flyers and racing drivers that at one point when you became a member of the Helicopter Club you were also given complimentary access to the Steering Wheel Club - or was it that the latter accommodated the former under some arrangement due to the club's lack of premises? I just don't remember.
As with several distinguished gentleman flyers in the 70's, Sopwith's preferred vehicle of choice for scouting about the country was a Bell 206 Jet Ranger. Thinking about it, I suppose that Peter Cadbury and 'Air Pegasus' would have been one of the closest contemparies to Tommy.
Tommy Sopwith races his powerboat the Avenger in 1970. Though he raced with the number '400' the wording on the back of the boat (partially obscured by sea spray) reads "Double-O-Seven"
Sopwith Jr. (right) stands with Sir Max Aitken founder of the Cowes-Torquay boat race.
A more recent image of Tommy Sopwith although I don't have details of the year in which this was taken.
Sav