Tjef, what a great collection of Southend nostalgia! Bravo, fantastic!
G-BGYF featured at the genesis of this thread (page
3 in fact) where she can be seen amidst a 'sea' of JetRangers in Speechless Two's wonderful reminiscences of his Rhodesian expedition. On page
2 PPRuNer Low Flier admitted to having flown YF and referred to her as the 'Raspberry Ripple' 206! A further photo of YF (taken during the filming of "Hopscotch") appears on page
38.
BGYF was touted as being the craft used in the filming of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' but .. as she was imported in July '79 and the filming took place in 1976, I don't see how this was possible! Would you happen to know which 206 John used for this movie (filmed mainly in Sardinia)?
It is great to see this craft in her AirLog livery and which, in my view, was a more pleasing arrangement than her 'Raspberry Ripple' effect. Indeed in her AirLog colours she bears a resemblance to the late Lord Dulverton's 206 (G-AZAG) a photo of which (courtesy of Helipixman) can be seen on page
22.
Sadly, and as you probably know, sometime after returning to the US to become N152AL again, she was involved in a crash in which the pilot was killed. Details of the accident may be found
here.
Regarding BDKD the 'Bad Kid' PPruNer Gaseous mentioned in June that the craft was nearing a rebuild and posted an image of her on page
37 at Battersea wearing Police titles. A further image of her appears on page
38 at Epsom and I dare say that Dennisimo has some interesting history with this craft along with John's other Enstroms.
The photo of G-AWAP at the Tradex Fair is great although I am keen to learn a little more about the function of the 'Paravision Rig'!
Of G-ANLW; this was of course John's second Widgeon - the first (G-APVD) having been sold to him by my godfather in 1972.
Here are some shots (with Shane in mind) of G-ANLW in her pre-Helicopter Hire days:
ANLW was assigned on a short term contract from Westland to Sabena in Belgium during one of the Expo fairs. (I'll have to dig up the year)
ANLW with Westlands conducting float trials
Around 1983/4 I hired a couple of different 206's from HH. Each time they were flown by a reasonably young chap but .. I simply can't remember his name and, worst of all, I can't remember the registrations of the craft. One was on shorts however and the other wore pop-outs.
Epiphany wrote: Ahhh PNG Savoia. I was taking my 'altitude' check on top of Mt Wilhelm near Goroka (circa 14,0000 feet I think) with Gary Freeman (RIP) and he was demonstrating the technique of flying a bowl of porridge. I was trying to pay attention but kept getting distracted by bits of helicopter that littered the approach to the pad. Gary knew the history of each crash.
Concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Very sorry to hear about Gary.
I remember him one time providing me with the etymology of his name 'Freeman' and, though interesting enough, seemed somewhat out of context during the middle of a C&T sortie. A quizzical glance on my part brought him back the matter at hand!
They say that PNG sorted out the men from the boys. Perhaps. What I remember is losing five friends in one year - a couple of them plank drivers. In fact I think PNG was probably one of the ultimate testing grounds for the smaller stiff wings - creeping up valleys towards a one way strips with little or no room for manoeuvre and dodging the weather (in and out of IMC) on almost every flight. One can think of better places to fly!