Bristow Photos
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Good to see that it's still the same clock hanging on the wall of flight planning in Aberdeen today - 23 years later.
They made clocks to last in them days.
XA
They made clocks to last in them days.
XA
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For the pedants; don't you remember those delightful double Beryls plus aircraft change?
Ian tells me that it is Simon Wijker behind Doogal.
I'm pleased to see that BHL (whatever cost centre they are called these days) adheres to the 'if it ain't broken - don't fix it' philosophy.
Regards
TOD
Ian tells me that it is Simon Wijker behind Doogal.
I'm pleased to see that BHL (whatever cost centre they are called these days) adheres to the 'if it ain't broken - don't fix it' philosophy.
Regards
TOD
Rather bizare BHL acquired G-BDDA (ex BA, BIH, Bond) then moved it on to Lebanon by the same company name.
Any info anyone?
Any info anyone?
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Bristows had aquired 3 AS332Ls from Helikopter Service LN-OMI ex G-PUMJ and G-PUMH, G-PUMI as well as G-BDDA after the Bond BIH merger
G-PUMH is now in Germany for the Federal Police
G-PUMI is now in Nigeria as 5N-BKJ
LN-OMI is now at Norsk Helikoter
G-BDDA is now in Lebanon
G-PUMH is now in Germany for the Federal Police
G-PUMI is now in Nigeria as 5N-BKJ
LN-OMI is now at Norsk Helikoter
G-BDDA is now in Lebanon
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Some photographs found in the old Aberdeen training school following a clearout.
They were just about to go in the skip. They date from 1981.
They were just about to go in the skip. They date from 1981.
Last edited by XA290; 22nd Aug 2009 at 17:33.
Have those pictures been cut out from wanted posters? 
I remember all those faces when they were youngsters. I was young once too!
Some good memories of working with all those individuals, and in the case of one or two, of nefarious activities in various locations around the world! 
I remember all those faces when they were youngsters. I was young once too!
Some good memories of working with all those individuals, and in the case of one or two, of nefarious activities in various locations around the world!
Just proves Bristow never hired based upon "Looks"!
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I suppose you could just about call what Paul Bentley is sporting a tache but it's not a patch on the Royal Marine issue ones of Donut & Streeter. The tache must be the only bit of the Bootneck uniform that doesn't get handed in when they demob!
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G-AVII
Originally Posted by 902Jon
It is going to the U.S to be broken up for spares.
A Gate Guardian for the new Bristow Aberdeen office & simulator complex?
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Kieran Murray
copied via this thread http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/388...years-sar.html
From the Shetland Times Kieran’s hanging on after 40 years
Photo: Malcolm Younger, Millgaet Media
SHETLAND coastguard’s well known winchman Kieran Murray yesterday (Monday) celebrated his ruby anniversary with the airborne search and rescue service, an unrivalled record.
In a career that has lasted almost twice as long as the coastguard have been operating in Shetland, the 61 year old has taken part in some of the most awe inspiring rescues ever to take place in UK waters.
Joining the Royal Navy at 15 to escape his childhood home of Derry it did not take him long to discover that he wanted to take to the skies…without leaving the sea behind.
“We used to watch the fixed wing aircraft flying past and one day I spotted this little red-nosed helicopter, which I enquired about and was told it was a search and rescue Whirlwind. I thought, I fancy that,” he remembered.
That was back in 1969. Already a navy diver, he trained to join the airborne squad and “the rest is history”.
It was 1983 before the coastguard service was set up at Sumburgh to provide an emergency service for the growing amount of activity offshore, and Kieran was there right from the beginning.
He had started working for Bristow four years earlier and so when they won the coastguard contract he was already part of the team, moving to Shetland with his wife Anne and family.
Kieran has counted the number of lives he has helped save over the 40 years he has been in the job, and it comes to more than 1,000. The number grows to 4,500 when you count the number of folk he has helped in rescue missions.
Of those, the one that stands out above all others came in the darkest year for marine disasters off Shetland…1993.
However it wasn’t the Braer oilspill that he remembers, but the Lunokhods, the Soviet klondyking fish factory ship that foundered off rocks under the Bressay lighthouse on 11 November that fateful year.
“It must have been two o’clock in the morning when we got the call that this vessel was going on the rocks at Bressay. I noticed how bad the weather was when I was driving into work, seeing the junction boxes on the electric poles lighting up because of the salt hitting them,” he recalled.
The southerly wind was blowing at 80 knots, the ship was sinking and there were 56 frightened men on board.
“Visibility was very, very poor and because of the proximity to the rocks and because it was sinking we had no option but to winch from the left hand side, and that in itself is unusual.”
The first lift saw the coastguard crew manage to retrieve all the crewmen who were on the deck, and they were promptly flown to the Clickimin.
On their return an RAF Sea King had already been to the ship and seen no one else on board, so they had left for the lifeboat where there were casualties on board.
“We came alongside and thought, there’s thirty three people there, but they must have gone. Then all of a sudden we saw a flare lit from the back of the boat and they all appeared. We managed to winch them all aboard. It was standing room only.”
That incident has gone down in history as the largest number of people rescued in a single winching operation, and earned the team the American Rescue Crew of the Year award.
The other incident that stands out in his mind was very different. Christmas Day 1995 was the whitest Christmas Shetland has seen in recent years, so white that every road was blocked and the medical services were worried about the very young and old suffering from hypothermia with the power supplies down.
Kieran was on duty preparing for a quiet day when the call came in. “The snow was so deep you couldn’t drive to work, so the helicopter had to come and pick us all up. That day we just flew and flew and flew. We didn’t get back to the hangar for our Christmas dinner until 10.30 at night. That was very a satisfying day.”
Over the years the service has stayed pretty much the same, Kieran says, but the technology has changed.
The old workhorse Sikorsky S61 has been replaced by the highly computerised S92, a sign of the times that he does not feel at home with. “I’m not a computer person,” he admits.
Digital cameras have even taken the shine of his enthusiasm for photography, which has seen many of his spectacular shots from various aerial vantage points published.
Aside from the computers, the job has not changed that much, he claims. Outside the fishing fleet has got smaller, some of the fishing boats have got bigger and there is less work going on offshore, but inside the coastguard everything remains familiar.
It is a job he continues to love, his enthusiasm passing on to his 31 year old son Kieran who now works alongside him as a pilot based at Sumburgh. “You never tire of flying around here,” he says, a smile beaming across his face.
From the Shetland Times Kieran’s hanging on after 40 years
Photo: Malcolm Younger, Millgaet Media
SHETLAND coastguard’s well known winchman Kieran Murray yesterday (Monday) celebrated his ruby anniversary with the airborne search and rescue service, an unrivalled record.
In a career that has lasted almost twice as long as the coastguard have been operating in Shetland, the 61 year old has taken part in some of the most awe inspiring rescues ever to take place in UK waters.
Joining the Royal Navy at 15 to escape his childhood home of Derry it did not take him long to discover that he wanted to take to the skies…without leaving the sea behind.
“We used to watch the fixed wing aircraft flying past and one day I spotted this little red-nosed helicopter, which I enquired about and was told it was a search and rescue Whirlwind. I thought, I fancy that,” he remembered.
That was back in 1969. Already a navy diver, he trained to join the airborne squad and “the rest is history”.
It was 1983 before the coastguard service was set up at Sumburgh to provide an emergency service for the growing amount of activity offshore, and Kieran was there right from the beginning.
He had started working for Bristow four years earlier and so when they won the coastguard contract he was already part of the team, moving to Shetland with his wife Anne and family.
Kieran has counted the number of lives he has helped save over the 40 years he has been in the job, and it comes to more than 1,000. The number grows to 4,500 when you count the number of folk he has helped in rescue missions.
Of those, the one that stands out above all others came in the darkest year for marine disasters off Shetland…1993.
However it wasn’t the Braer oilspill that he remembers, but the Lunokhods, the Soviet klondyking fish factory ship that foundered off rocks under the Bressay lighthouse on 11 November that fateful year.
“It must have been two o’clock in the morning when we got the call that this vessel was going on the rocks at Bressay. I noticed how bad the weather was when I was driving into work, seeing the junction boxes on the electric poles lighting up because of the salt hitting them,” he recalled.
The southerly wind was blowing at 80 knots, the ship was sinking and there were 56 frightened men on board.
“Visibility was very, very poor and because of the proximity to the rocks and because it was sinking we had no option but to winch from the left hand side, and that in itself is unusual.”
The first lift saw the coastguard crew manage to retrieve all the crewmen who were on the deck, and they were promptly flown to the Clickimin.
On their return an RAF Sea King had already been to the ship and seen no one else on board, so they had left for the lifeboat where there were casualties on board.
“We came alongside and thought, there’s thirty three people there, but they must have gone. Then all of a sudden we saw a flare lit from the back of the boat and they all appeared. We managed to winch them all aboard. It was standing room only.”
That incident has gone down in history as the largest number of people rescued in a single winching operation, and earned the team the American Rescue Crew of the Year award.
The other incident that stands out in his mind was very different. Christmas Day 1995 was the whitest Christmas Shetland has seen in recent years, so white that every road was blocked and the medical services were worried about the very young and old suffering from hypothermia with the power supplies down.
Kieran was on duty preparing for a quiet day when the call came in. “The snow was so deep you couldn’t drive to work, so the helicopter had to come and pick us all up. That day we just flew and flew and flew. We didn’t get back to the hangar for our Christmas dinner until 10.30 at night. That was very a satisfying day.”
Over the years the service has stayed pretty much the same, Kieran says, but the technology has changed.
The old workhorse Sikorsky S61 has been replaced by the highly computerised S92, a sign of the times that he does not feel at home with. “I’m not a computer person,” he admits.
Digital cameras have even taken the shine of his enthusiasm for photography, which has seen many of his spectacular shots from various aerial vantage points published.
Aside from the computers, the job has not changed that much, he claims. Outside the fishing fleet has got smaller, some of the fishing boats have got bigger and there is less work going on offshore, but inside the coastguard everything remains familiar.
It is a job he continues to love, his enthusiasm passing on to his 31 year old son Kieran who now works alongside him as a pilot based at Sumburgh. “You never tire of flying around here,” he says, a smile beaming across his face.
New Uniforms!
That is a pretty terrible image - Is there any explanation as to why three, I believe 'Man-kinis' is the technical term, are issued amongst the Bristow Ferry Flight equipment ??
Thank goodness the Old Man wasn't around to see that !!!
Thank goodness the Old Man wasn't around to see that !!!
I heard they wuz RN Tropical survival suits!
There is yet another re-organization taking place....reckon this time they may be cutting right down to the bare essentials if this new uniform issue is any indicator of things to look forward too.