Bristow Photos

[Dave Ed]

Kerala, India

Kerala, India




Tim Arnett provided the following for my original website......


I have just happened on your site and history of the company. I note that in your Bases section India is mentioned but perhaps you are not aware of the operation carried on there from 1962 to 1964. The intention was for Bristows to start a company in partnership with a Bombay outfit called Cambata Aviation (Pvt) and the principal task was spraying rubber in Kerala (South India). Approximately eight pilots were involved and Bell 47G and Hiller 12A and C machines were shipped out.


We had links with Tata-Fison, BP, and Shell Chemicals if my memory serves. The operation manager was Cyril Chresta who had previously been in Iran, I was senior pilot, the local company was to be called Aerocrop and we used that name locally. We flew the Bells and Hillers (plus one 12E of Cambata's) the length and breadth of India, often by strapping jerry cans of fuel onto the outside of the helicopters when out of sight of the airport authorities. I obtained an Indian licence and have the distinction of holding Indian Commercial Helicopter Pilots Licence serial number 1, issued 2-9-1963.


Plans to set up a permanent Indian operation in conjunction with a local company fell through after we had done three years of the South India rubber spraying and other work including some oil exploration support in the north just below the Himalayas. Redhill in fact pulled us out just as I was signing up for a new house there, we had wives accompanying us. The initial base was to be in Bangalore, then Bombay and finally Hyderabad the ex Nizam's principality, was selected, my first daughter was born there. It would probably have been a good long term operation but Redhill politics decreed otherwise.
The photos were taken in Kerala, probably on a rubber estate called Shaliacary in April 1963, the following year I was flying the Hiller 12E there. We charged I think 10 rupees per acre for the rubber which was quite profitable.