Bristow Photos

[Dave Ed]

Denmark

Denmark



The Wessex book by Patrick Allen states that Bristows operated Wessex out of Esbjerg, Denmark for Gulf Oil.

I came across this slide which had a few words :- Denmark. Chris Christensen, George Harris.



Not a lot to go on with this one but an article by Ken Rowe makes for an amusing read and I accept no responsibility for any of the content!!

Esbjerg Denmark (Sept 73-Dec 73)

(A/C Wessex G-AZBY)
Pilots:- Dick Metcalf, Rudi Meyer
Engineers:- Don McQuaig, Ken Rowe

(A/C Wessex G-ATBY)
Pilots:- John Cameron (chief pilot), Tony Stafford?
Engineers:- John French (chief engineer), "Dixie" Dean"Kiwi" ???, A.N. Other.

(The reason I am vague about "TBY" crewing is because my diaries don't record it and by then alcohol could well have been affecting my memory.)

Bristows already had an operation in Denmark situated at Esbjerg so it was only logical to set up there. Don and myself drove over in his ageing Mini via the car ferry from Harwich, Rudi drove up from Germany and Dick flew the aircraft from Yarmouth. The set up in Denmark was unbelievable even by today's standards and could only be described as working in Five Star conditions. If Mister Bristow made any money out of the permanent operation I want to know how.

The hangar had to be seen to be believed. It could have taken about six Wessex and was insulated and kept at a constant temperature of 65 degrees summer and winter. The floor was covered with a shiny grey oil resistant paint that was renewed at regular intervals whether it required it or not and the whole structure was spotless - not a cobweb to be seen. John Cameron had ensconced himself in an office that he decided to panel in oak whilst he sat at a large oak desk the likes of which Mister Bristow would have been proud to have in his office. A slightly less lavish office for the Chief Engineer and a near fully equipped kitchen and lounge as a crew room completed the scene. Now comes the crunch. They flew once a week with a total flight time of 40 minutes and had never in the history of operation, 3 years to that time, flown more than double figure hours in one month and this was proudly displayed on a graph behind John Cameron's desk.

The aircraft "TBY" stood by in the middle of the hangar shiny clean, gleaming and looking like a museum exhibit rather than a working Bristow's aircraft. Rather reminded me of Eket!!#!!?!!!? I realised that the hangar belonged to Christian Salveson but Bristow's furnished it. If anyone can tell me, especially John French if you're reading this, how did you manage to get a staffing of four licensed engineers for such a workload? What is more the only time they had any major maintenance work to do they had a replacement aircraft sent in from Yarmouth with a crew to staff it. They all had luxury bungalows for accommodation as they had their wives and partners with them. I now realise why I was getting paid peanuts for roughing it in Eket!

Our aircraft "ZBY" arrived and was immediately criticised by John French for being in such a state that he wrote off to Redhill to say that it had not been maintained properly whilst in Wales. In actual fact it was quite smart compared to some of the high work rate "Wessii" at Yarmouth as it had been flown relatively small amount of hours in the past few months. This meant that we had time to keep it clean but of course along side his "museum"exhibit it looked slightly tatty. The night after our aircraft "ZBY"arrived and after we had knocked off work he stayed behind and crawled all over our aircraft. When we arrived in the morning he had made out a pile of extra worksheets with more than a hundred and fifty snags on. They ranged from stone chips to the paint on the underside; oil stains on the paintwork; dzus fastener markings not complete; and the one that really got me was that the tyres needed painting with tyre black. Although we did not have a chief engineer and he was supposed to oversee our operation it did not stop me from telling him where to get off. As anyone who knows me will concur I am not afraid of speaking my mind to anyone if I think it is necessary. This did not particularly endear me to him or him to me from that point on but I felt better when our chief pilot added his support.

Well that is enough of my whingeing and back to the plot. The first week we flew almost every day in order to set the rig up but after that it seemed to be about three days a week, two days of which were crew change days with the possibility of one day that was for some other reason. The rig was situated about one hour and 20 mins out into the North Sea. You could hardly say in our spare time we had to help out with the other half of the operation as they hardly flew. Their job was to service a "Buoy loading point". If you don't know what one of these is, it is a large buoy attached to a well head and a tanker comes alongside and attaches itself to it and fills itself up direct from the well head. In this particular case it took about two weeks for the tanker to fill and what the helicopter did was to carry an oil engineer out to inspect the mechanism once a week and change the crew of the tanker if required. The possibility of a casevac was negligible as the tanker had a doctor and a small clinic on board and if necessary would unhitch and steam to a nearby port.

Another job that came our aircraft's way was a trip to Sweden in order to carry out a crew change for a rig the oil company was operating out of a place called Malmar on the Baltic Sea. It required an overnight stop in Sweden as the crew change started at 8.30a.m. We used to fly into Malmo in order to clear customs and then on to Malmar for an overnight stay in a hotel. The oil company used to allow U.S.$1000 personal expenses for the pilot and engineer in order to fund this. Remembering this was 1973; it barely covered all the expenses if you included alcohol and we always did. So beware all of you that are thinking of taking holidays in Sweden as it's very expensive. This trip was done on a weekly basis alternating between our aircraft and John French's aircraft. The rig we were servicing was not due to finish its hole until Dec 28th so it looked as if we were to spend Christmas in Denmark but with some philandering we managed to get John French's aircraft to stand in for us. We left on the23rd Dec, myself and Dick flying the Wessex back to Redhill, Don driving back to his home in Norfolk and Rudi to Germany. I went on leave over the Christmas period only to return to meet my "bete noir" Jean Dennel, which didn't turn out as I expected........................