Great stuff John!
On pages
52 and
53 PPRuNer Tjef treated us to a selection of Helicopter Hire (John Crewdson) nostalgia and clarified the uncertainty surrounding the identity of the 206 used in the filming of the James Bond film 'The Spy Who Loved Me' where the late John Crewdson flew wearing a wig!
Tjef2802 wrote: The 206 featured in the "Spy Who Loved Me" was G-BAML and filmed in Sardinia by the ill-fated G-AWAP.
'The Spy Who Loved Me' was filmed in 1976 which, at the time, placed BAML with Somerton Rayner Helicopters (or as my godfather would say .. Summertime Reindeer!) but, presumably, Crewdson had an arrangement with the Major to use the craft.
BAML's history begins with her being registered in the US as N7844S and then being shipped to the UK where she was bought by Mann's in 1972. 'Summertime Reindeer' then bought her the following year selling her on to Blue Star Shipping in 1983.
In 1986 she was bought by Peter Scott Agriculture of Pontefract in Yorkshire (I do miss the licorice 'Pontefract Cakes' I used to buy from the tuck shop when schooling in the UK) and finally to Heliscott in 1990 under whose stewardship she came to her demise on 30th May 2003 when the craft apparently suffered a loss of tail rotor effectiveness during a filming sortie in Northumberland.
An excerpt from the
accident report reads:
The helicopter was involved in relatively slow speed, low level aerial photography that involved itflying a straight track before turning right around a fixed structure of significant historical interest.The pilot carried out one practice run that was judged to be slightly too fast and too close to thestructure. The second attempt proceeded without incident until, when half way around the turn, thehelicopter began to yaw to the right.
Application of corrective left pedal was ineffective and as thehelicopter continued yawing right it descended. The rotation continued through several completerevolutions and it struck sloping ground at low forward speed rolling on to its right side. All threeoccupants were able to vacate the aircraft with only minor injuries. An engineering investigationfailed to find any technical fault that could have accounted for the accident. There was evidence,however, that the helicopter may have been operating in a part of the flight envelope where thesusceptibility to loss of tail rotor effectiveness was possible.
Two safety recommendations, promotingthe dissemination of literature relating to the loss of tail rotor effectiveness, have been made.
Somerton Rayner Helicopters Bell 206B G-BAML at Northampton's Cliftonville School on 10th September 1973 (Photo: Bill Rich)
On the day of this photo BAML was using the rugby grounds of Cliftonville School as a landing site to take guests on an aerial tour of the new expansion plans for Northampton.