All those years ago.....
05 Sep. As I was driving to work this morning it occurred to me that thirty-eight years ago this day, Jack Moss and I jumped into a newly-refurbished, zero-houred Whirlwind, G-BAMH, and flew to Abu Dhabi. The route was Gatwick Toussus Le Noble Lyon Nice (U/S for an oil leak no, really) Pisa Rome Naples Brindisi Corfu Athens Rhodes Cyprus Beirut Damascus Badanah (arrested by the Saudis for spying) Qaisumah Bahrein (two days to get over the ice in the Miranda we had in Badanah) Abu Dhabi. The trip took 14 days with night stops in Lyon, Nice, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Corfu, Athens, Nicosia, Beirut, Damascus, Badanah and Bahrein. We had some incredibly long over-water sectors wearing only lifejackets with no flotgear on the aircraft and a 10-man raft & survival pack in the passenger cabin. The plan being that I would go into the cabin and chuck out the liferaft while Jack held the aircraft off the water. Yeah, right.
Jack was appalled to discover I couldnt fly a helicopter and said there was no way he was going to fly it all the way to AUH. He had me following him through on the cyclic before we reached Ashford and on pedals after Toussus. Somewhere between Pisa and Rome I had all three and apart from landing and take-off, we shared the flying from there on in. Great trip; fantastic character; probably moved on by now but, Cheers Jack, wherever you are.
I just wish Id taken some pictures.