SAL Bulldogs - Botswana Defence Force and Return

[SALBAE]

Just wondering if anyone can supply any information on the Bulldog 1210's supplied to the Botswana DF circa 1982 for a research project?

Of the six supplied, one (OD3) was written off whilst in Africa and the remainder returned to the UK where they remain registered today (G-BHXA/B and G-BHZR/ZS/ZT).
Any anecdotes or information regarding these aircraft, particularly regarding operations, engineering details and their return home would be greatly appreciated.
(I have previously posted in the African Forum which may be less widely read than Nostalgia).

Many thanks in advance,

SALBAE

[sycamore]

You could try the `Small Air Forces` forum on Flypast/Keypublishing.com...

[SALBAE]

sycamore

That's a good start and thanks very much for the suggestion - I'll report back!

SALBAE

[VictorGolf]

There's a chap up in the Newcastle area who is a member of the G-AZBE group and is restoring one. Sorry I don't have any further details.

[Duchess_Driver]

I remember seeing a couple on the acceptance flight line at the factory- that would have been 1982 IIRC. I’ll see if I can dig out which ones and dates...

[SALBAE]

Duchess_Driver - That would be really helpful, thanks!

[SALBAE]

One member has Kindly provided some very useful information on the typical routing followed during outbound delivery flights. As mentioned earlier four returned via Luqa and spent 2-3 years in open storage during their return to the UK.

sycamore - Thanks very much for the Flypast suggestion but unfortunately nothing was revealed. I suspect that records particularly those related to activities in Gaborone will be minimal if existent at all.

Duchess_Driver - I have obtained a photo of 409 / OD-3 wearing its B Class registration at Prestwick probably around the time that you recall. Sadly this was the aircraft written off in Botswana during November 1982! (Tried to attach picture but it won't upload here!).

Anyone's snippets or recollections will be greatly appreciated - thank you.



SALBAE

[Duchess_Driver]

Thanks for the prompt... no dates for the Botswana ones, sorry. But I have 4*Nigerian (G-BJNR/S/TU) on 14/4/82 at Prestwick.

G-BHXB (no date in my log) which became OD2, was cancelled 8/10/80 but can’t remember for the life of me actually seeing it.

[SALBAE]

Duchess_Driver - Thanks for checking again. It seems that all six were cancelled together in readiness for export although deliveries may well have been at different times afterwards. Some ex- Nigerian aircraft were apparently sold to someone in New Zealand but not maintained or restored!

SALBAE

[jimjim1]

(Tried to attach picture but it won't upload here!).
SALBAE

That may be due to your low post count. There is a 'probationary' period where certain features are restricted until your post count is sufficient.

You can't just paste an image in but you can link to an external image with a URL, upload an image from your local drive, or attach an image from your pprune album.

There is also a suggested size limit X x Y, and there appears to be an absolute file size limit too, for upload anyway. It may be that you can link to larger files stored elsewhere.

800 x 800 is OK for sure.

Here is a recent brief discussion about it.
https://www.pprune.org/computer-internet-issues-troubleshooting/613417-uploading-images-pprune.html#post10250744

Larger images are now automatically re-scaled as the window size changes. This is a relatively recent software change.

[SALBAE]

jimjim1 - that explains it all and now makes sense! I thought it was just a reference to URL uploads (You can tell I'm new here!).

A few more posts to go then!

Thanks very much.

SALBAE

[ETOPS]

There's one for sale at the moment - G-BHZR

PlaneCheck Aircraft for Sale - New planes and price reductions (http://www.planecheck.com?ent=da&id=42675)https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1932x1575/1013863_large_2e5284f4b952f780f7ca887c29c21352a0aa972b.jpg

[SALBAE]

ETOPS

Very interesting and thanks for the link which I'll follow up with the phone number given. This was the fourth of the six aircraft ("OD4") supplied and which possibly made its return via a different route to the rest (i.e. it didn't reside at Luqa for a couple of years or so!). Every snippet helps!

SALBAE