Bristow Sumburgh - End Of An Era

[griffothefog]

SASless,

I may have been "cherry arsed and angel faced" back then, but that was part of my charm in certain quarters

To put your weary cells at peace and in the interest of licensees all over Shetland, I was in fact 18 in 1976

When was your last tour in Sumburgh and who was chief pilot?

[SASless]

Griffo.....one should not ask trick questions of the elderly young fellow!

Last tour.....gee...must have been the trip I made land fall in the fog on the big island after doing a circuit about one of the small islands....then hover mosey'd along until I found myself perched on the end of the runway quite by luck.

I will have to check my log book to be certain....we were doing the Ninian Shuttle with the 58T's....and yer Dad wuz doing carpenter work yet on the house and we were enjoying yer Mum's cooking!

Chief Pilot..... that shall remain a mystery!

[S61-S92]

Another Batch of Pics from Quarryboy

[griffothefog]

SAS,

I knew you had gone senile

I'll make sure I get my sailing ticket before I come over

[bigglesbutler]

It's amazing to see the change over the years as things mature, and not just the aircraft. I have some photos of more recent Sum SAR characters, I will try and dig them out.

Thanks to all those who have helped me along the way during my time in sunny Sumburger, and all the things they taught me too.

Fly safe.

Si

[TipCap]

Hi Simon

Nice to hear from you again.

Reading this is Haverfordwest where I will be moving to soon. Finally decided to hang up the gloves and enjoy retirement.

I remember being detached to Sumburgh in 1973. We used to live in the Scalloway Hotel up by Lerwick and drive to and from Sumburgh every day.

I also seem to remember that I did the the first BHL SAR job escorting a Bond S76A in with engine probs. Struggled to keep up. Its Captain was one Ash Llewellyn-Thomas (RIP)

I will have to read PPrune more often as my suggestion to BHL Management to keep us Retirees in the link with what is going on in the Company seems to fallen on deaf ears. The quarterly mag would be nice...........

John

[SASless]

Griffo,

No sailing ticket needed....pack yer sea bag and come on over!

[S61-S92]

TipCap

You can keep up to date as the Bristow Newsletter Magazines are available for download here

Newsletters - Bristow Group In The News - bristowgroup.com

[TipCap]

Thanks Harky

[soouthmoother]

Gentleman Ron

One evening Ron stuck his head in the starboard cabin door, whilst I was doing a Check A on RG, I think it was. He happed to have "lost" a box of 200 down the port side of the back seat, behind the first aid kit. After couple of hours fiddling I pulled them out of the flat aerial mount, centre-rear of the fuselage bottom. On handing them back later, I stuck a note on the box, having bladetaped a smuggle hole behind the first aid kit.
[Well, better safe than sorry]. As he taxied RG up next day, Ron smirked out of the window and mouthed eight hundred.

Fast forward few years to ABZ. RG on ad-hoc. Ron driving and mainly me on spanners. The 800 hole still going strong. Then one dropped on a rig off Miri and I was off on a panic ferry flight to get RG there [was it RG ?]. End of the smuggle hole era. 1987 left ABZ. 2009 still in Devon making soap machinery and flogging it all over the place. Never will forget Ron.

[Fareastdriver]

800 holes and all that.

I don't know why people bothered. I always brought my 200 cigs in on the nav board for everybody to see. Never had a problem, Aberdeen or Sumburgh.

When I was on the S76 in the beginning, single pilot in summer, I would break the carton and and tuck five packs into each flying suit trouser pocket. Over time a hole had worn in one of them. I was walking back to the line office at Aberdeen when the old lady customs officer who was regularly on site called me over to tell me I was losing my cigarettes. I looked behind and there was this trail of Benson & Hedges across the pan. I thanked her, picked them up and carried on.

[Hedski]

Couldn't resist joining in. There are lots of photos, I couldn't decide what to leave out so I'm posting the majority. Enjoy.

27/12/06: Creche Commanders Grant and Whyte flying 'LC' on airtest with 'OC' ready to scramble.






Also former Bristow pilot Ian McDill airtesting G-ATFM for BIH who were using Bristow's hangar at the time.


07/02/07: Snowy Sumburgh


Paul Whyte looking suspicious, maybe he forgot to check the weather...

Welcome to my orofice.


15/05/07: John McIntyre 'running in' to the stern of the Caledonian Victory.

[Hedski]

16/05/07: Tommy Andersson and Shiner Wright arriving for detachment to support the NW Hutton decommission project.




15/06/07: MALM Turnbull (to use his preferred title) in relaxed pose (coiled spring indeed) with yours truly visible up front.

Tony looking down on Quoys, Lerwick (that'll be us orbiting Jobs Grant's new gaff....AGAIN!!!!) ***I must pay tribute to Tony who has recently battled cancer and returned to tensioning the wire all the while performing his grandfatherly duties. That's determination!***

I used to wonder why people said I looked shady..........


17/06/07: 'OC' on standby apres the wash with 'LC' behind and BIH's G-BFFJ providing the support to the NW Hutton decommissioning crews.

[Hedski]

18/06/07: Gama King Air G-SASC parked on the Air Ambulance spot outside the Bristow hangar, the crews sometimes came in for a mug'o'cha.


19/06/07: The day of my last official SAR shift in Sumburgh.
John Mc poling 'OC' around the Saipem 7000 off Lerwick, it was an enormous piece of kit.

The duty crew that day: back (l-r) John Thomson, Terry Mooney, front (l-r) John Mc, et Moi.

Former Bristow Sumburgh pilot Ptoly Mortimer taxiing BIH's G-BFFJ to depart for the NW Hutton.




14/01/08: FFWD and it's night stops with S92's from Scatsta to facilitate building the new hangar there. G-IACD fresh from Connecticut.



18/03/08: Ian Gault leading 'The Glove' (Alan Price if you've lived under a rock) by the hand during early morning start.

[Hedski]

25/06/08: The retirees, all of which as far as I'm aware are now firefighting in Lebanon.









12/02/09: Another 92 night stopper with 'Coastguard 100' departing in the background flown by former Bristow pilot Martin Naylor.


13/02/09: A cold snowy bloody early start for the triplets.




31/05/09: Groundhog, I mean groundrun Sunday with CG100 on standby.

[soouthmoother]

Bergen Runs

How many bottles of Johnny Walker can you hang from the blanking caps, inside a 61's sponsons ? Courtesy of, and in memory of, Hookey Walker.

[nessboy]

Or in the legs of a immersion suit!!

[soouthmoother]

immersion suit

Trouble is, if the suit is called upon to perform it's primary role, it's a long walk home along the bottom and I can't hold my breath that long. Mind you, with a couple of JW stuffed down the Y fronts, probably be past caring afore too long.

In better days I used to get flypasts from the Portland SAR 61's, routing along the clifftop above Sprey Point Sad to see CHC's pokey little beast scuttering about Lyme Bay now tho. Wot'll happen when a real job comes up ? The ghosts of Sumburgh won't rest easy.

[C.C.C.]

More on 'The Biscuits'

Originally Posted by soouthmoother

End of the smuggle hole era.

Not quite. As I posted earlier the cabin trim fit in G-BFEU led to a similar fit in the Tigers, and Uncle Ron had a cardboard cut-out which fitted below the first aid kit that used to be in the Tiger's rear seat left armrest originally (just like the Puma). So the biscuits tradition continued on the Tiger with Uncle Ron out of Aberdeen.

Originally Posted by Fareastdriver

Never had a problem, Aberdeen or Sumburgh.

Then you were lucky. Flew G-BFEU with Andy Paton onto the Stena Seaspread which had been way out of limits for over 2 days. In those days you stayed onboard the helicopter and the deck crew (all wearing radio headsets) did the unloading/loading. My door window was opened and a large brown envelope with several boxes of cigars thrown in. On arrival at Sumburgh we were met by Customs who field stripped the cabin & baggage bay, but not the cockpit. I was flying down on the same Banderainte as our passengers, but Andy was kind enough to post on my share of the cigars in the company mail.

Flew a Tiger with Uncle Ron one day and he had not hidden his biscuits (cannot remember if the helicopter had the secret compartment that day). So he frantically smoked one from each packet and gave me half of the packets to stash in my immersion suit as Customs were in another field stripping mood that day.

[S61-S92]

Bristow Sumburgh Scrap Books

Here's a few pics extracted from the Bristow Sumburgh Scrap Books which I salvaged ... but who got Volume One, it was missing?!
(Get in touch if you have it, lots of goodies in that which need to be posted here!)