Originally Posted by
Genghis the Engineer
I remember that Gazelle, it lived in A shed what I was a Farnborough apprentice circa 1988/89. There was a placard in the cockpit saying "It is prohibited to crash this aircraft ", or words roughly to that effect. I don't actually recall ever seeing it fly, but recall being told that it was mostly flown by the station commander as his private "hack" - that may of course have just been ground crew scuttlebut.
G
It was flown frequently but rarely used for trials work, mostly CT by fixed wing TPs who were cross trained for helicopters, although having said that, various COEFs did use it as transport to other stations for meetings etc and Graham Williams flew it for the BBC to commemorate Cody's first flight from what was then the Officers Mess lawn.
I had one ride in it with the late Pete Rainey, regretfully in the back seat so I omitted to record it in my log book. I have one Gazelle flight recorded in XZ335 on 3 Jul 78 but I think that was an AAC Gazelle of 656 Sqdn.