We had a "7" at Farnborough c 1969. I got some unofficial dual ( hard work for me with working throttle and matching Rotor RPM within limits) but remember being given a great demo of Translational Lift, including the twitch as we got off the ground after the roll. Happy days!

Reading this Thread has made it obvious that I wouldn't have had a chance of making it through the RN Helo training system back in the early 60s, PPL or not! Binning me at the Flying Grading stage at BRNC saved HMG quite a few wasted hours and £££.

O-D ST Thanks, but I don't recall either of those surnames, but it is a long time ago. I think he arrived on 84 B Flt in the Summer of 1974 as a first tourist, first name Hamish, single, and definitely from Scotland. Perhaps Hamish was a nickname, but I don't think so.

After the Hiller 12E (56 hours) in the RN it was on to the Whirlwind HAR Mk3 and HAS Mk7 (42 hours). Wings awarded after 98 hours helicopter time in Feb '65 before AFT and OFT on the Wessex. How times change! Never flew the Whirlwind again. Seem to remember with the Mk3 the Wright Cyclone had to be shut down to do a practice engine off landing otherwise the throttle opened when you raised the collective to cushion the landing. That made you very sure you were going to reach the spot before you shut it down.

I recognise some of the names in the posts above...especially Don Sissons as the CAA trapper who always put the fear of God into me in civvy life when he did my Bell 212 and Bo105 initial type instrument ratings.

Dem.., the Mk3 was easier to start ,being electric,rather than the `cartridge` start on the Mk7(carry plenty of sixpence coins ,as you`ll probably run out of safety discs);Much easier on Mk9/10...
DS was my instructor at Ternhill and remember doing a L/Level Tac.navex around Oswestry when he spotted some`activity` behind some bushes on a hillside,took control and approached from a different direction for a closer look,putting a couple`s afternoon session to an end...! bit of a `poacher turned gamekeeper` when he went to the CAA..`

I seem to recall that the trick to start a reluctant Mk10 was to stamp your left foot hard. The starter relay was mounted under the floor in this location.

Mog

The Wessex, you hit it with the Fire Axe handle… how things had moved on from the Whirlwind..

All you ex 22 Sqn St Mawgan Whirlywinders, I’m about to make your day.


https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/...an-1962-online

Spot on! - Not the starter relay but the igniter box under there.

Originally Posted by Mogwi View Post
I seem to recall that the trick to start a reluctant Mk10 was to stamp your left foot hard. The starter relay was mounted under the floor in this location.

Mog

It was/is the Time Delay Switch.

That's what I was told it was. Very effective trick it was too - generallly took a few stamps though. A new Nav would look at you strangely if he hadn't seen it done before!

A temporary odditiy for the W10, during a mid 60s period, was the Ops room oven and the 'chippies' pencil being essentials. The batch of ignitor plugs were only good for one start without 'being fixed'. As soon as the morning mushroom hunt (test flight) was finished, the plug was removed, the 'sparky bits' heavily rubbed with a thick lead pencil and then 'baked' for 10 minutes in the oven. Once done, it was good for one more start !
This was how it was done at Thorney - don't know about other flights.

Igniter plugs were the bane of our life in the W10. All crewmen generally carried a spare, together with a 2B pencil. If the plug failed you took it out, went round the guts of it once with the pencil and re-fitted it. It would usually give you one start. If it didn't, you had the spare plug (which may or not have worked for you...)

In FEAF for a while there were no spare plugs, so it was 2B pencils only. On one operation, where a speedy departure was called for from an RV with anxious troops on board, the plug failed and so did the pencil treatment... The crewman grabbed an empty milk bottle from the cabin and filled it with fuel from the water drain tap under the aircraft. Then he soaked a bit of rag and lit it, and while the Boss went through the start sequence the crewman poured the remaining kerosene into the sucking compressor and lit it with the flaming rag as the HP cock was opened. The flame front went through the engine and it lit! Bless the Gnome.

When the Squadron was back in UK I got so fed up with raising defect reports on the plugs to no effect that I called the MD of the firm in Putney that made them, for A Discussion. He had no idea there was a problem, all he knew was that the RAF bought lots of them! I told him the milk bottle story above and it was, I think, the only time I have ever heard someone go pale on the phone. Things got better after that, presumably because they started to pay more attention to the quality and integrity of the plug core. The aircraft industry is brilliant if you communicate with it.

Happy days!

I’m fairly certain that it was a ‘Right’ foot stamp that brought a reluctant gnome to life.just look at the floor in front of the right rudder pedal on any WW10 and note the shiny paint free depression there.I always stamped the floor as part of the start procedure.

Retreating Blade: I agree that right foot stamping was a default part of starting a Whirlwind 10. I also think by the time I started flying them, in 1970, the starting problems were mainly sorted out. I went on to serve on 103 Sqn in Singapore where there seemed to be very few starting problems. Very happy days!

Still stamping in 1975!

Served at South Cerney and Acklington with Dave Cardus. We borrowed a tandem cycle from the mess store in 66 and I damaged Dave's heel after his cotter pin fell out. What did he do after leaving the service in 88?

Hamish Struthers, he went from Nicosia to Oman in 1975.

One of my favourite Whirlwind tales, from Harrier pre-course training, was about a colleague who was about to demo a LL EOL at Tern Hill. As they go downwind, stalwarrt QHI briefs Bloggs. 'OK Bloggs. As we run in towards the airfield I'll say 'Put your hand on the Speed Select. And when I'm ready to start, I'll say NOW. Then you retard the Speed Select fully. Any questions?' 'No, ***.
So as they run in, *** says 'Put your hand on the speed select now.....'
Fortunately they just scraped over the hedge into The Triangle. The A41 was not so busy those days!

Unlike a colleague of mine when we were both instructing on the Gazelle, who had his student retard the throttle during a low level EOL demo at Ternhill when he was in fact briefed to merely “Identify the throttle” in advance of the “Out of the gate” then “3-2-1….Retard!”

They landed outside of the airfield…