ericferret

I believe Roy still rides as does Mike Janes, they should both know better at their age.
Curly is reported as still being around. Roy and Curly were both still working the Hillers for Bond as was I to the bitter end in 1986. The last two were sold off to John Holborn, Holborn Helicopters at Ropsley near Grantham.

jpinx

David George sold the 12E operations of Sloane Helicopters to Central Helicopters. I was in Argyll spreading phosphates on the forests at the time and I remember getting some instructions to change the name on the van. For whatever reason I only got around to doing one side and it was a point of great jocularity with the locals that we were 2-faced

I free-lanced for Central or a short time - Jim Koty was a field engineer they sent up. Then I went to work for BEAS for a season's crop spraying in Lincs followed by more forestry. Phil Slattery was the field engineer for a while and he introduced me to StarWars when it first came out - so that pins the year to 1977. Geoff Kitto was over from Nelson NZ doubling his crop-spraying seasons around that time. Gordon Neals outfit were a pleasure to work with. Bob Towsland(?) was the rep for the local area and did a fine job. I even got to like the "Boston Stamp Collection" managed by Pat It was quite a challenge to get into some of those tiny fields and squirt the roses. I read somewhere that G-BDRY was wrecked. That had been the aircraft they had kept for my use. What happened in the end? Where did John Neal go? They had some great footage on home movies of Dave Bond spraying with a hang-stick Hiller 12A and Paul Midgley in a Djinn.

vfr440

Ah,.... now then, Phil Slattery is at Cumbernauld with PDG. Had a long natter to him in the hangar last October, he's well but no Hillers or Lamas, all on 355s now.
And Paul Midgley (Midgers) in a Djinn - I didn't know he was that skilled . Would he be the Midgers who flew a J/R for Streeters in the early 80s, then transferred to Manns as their Ops Manager (I think)?


As TRC will remember we had this contract with an A109 down in the Basque country (Bayonne?) on 2 week rotations. PDG, Midgers + beer and wine and tremendous seafood


Thanks for the memory-trigger!! - VFR

ericferret

G-BDRY was written off in November 1984. Neals were still operating a pair of Hillers in 1987 G-BLDM and G-HILR from Holbeach, both sold in 1991. I think that the advent of low pressure ground vehicles plus the legislation finished off their Air Force!!!
Neals was an ag chemical company that operated it's own aircraft so I think they just continued with ground ops. Nice to hears Phil Slattery is still on the go.

I met Geoff Kitto when he was buying a spray rig for a Hughes 500.,

jpinx

PDG is the successor to PLM from Inverness isn't it? John Poland and Dave Clem ruled the roost in the far north for quite a few years as PLM. I believe there was some re-arrangement of the company and John Poland left. I spoke to Dave Clem briefly some years ago -- after he came back from Chile. Eric Patrick was working for them too. Peter Walker used to fly for both PLM and us at Gleneagle. Great guy and a great loss.

Black Isle Helicopters was a small outfit run by the MacCallum brothers. I met them a few times - lovely guys and lots of fun.

Chris Winters had an Enstrom that Pat taught him to fly. He was living somewhere out near Glenrothes. We also ended up looking after a Piper 180 which I refreshed my FW licence on and used a few times.

I don't know how long Pat was flying after we sold Gleneagle Helicopters. I lost touch and the next thing I heard was that he had died, but I never found out what happened. I lost contact with the 2 office managers who kept tabs on everyone .. Joanne and Linda. I believe Linda went down to the Midlands and married a helicopter engineer there, and Joanne was living with her husband Johnnie MacIntyre and family over near Burntisland. He was working on the rigs. Any leads?

Alan Cameron was a frequent and welcome coffee-scrounger in the office in Edinburgh while he was flying the various Barrett machines. A very proficient pilot and capable guy all-round. When we had the ICI pipeline contract Pat often ended up in Liverpool overnight and if there were issues with the machine it was Matt Casey's team that we called on.

Having stopped flying and lost contact with that world for so many years (25) means my memories are patchy, but it comes back the more I write. Apologies in advance for any errors - and thanks for the jogs

Geoffersincornwall

As a young cadet at Dartmouth we visited RNAS Culdrose one day and I had my first ever flight in a helicopter and guess who was at the controls - yes JP.

I later met his cousin (?) Pat Poland who was SNO Engadine in the mid 70's. I also had the pleasure of meeting John's mother (?) Lady Poland when I was the Sea Cadet Liaison for Padstow SCC. (She was the patron). Seems his Dad (RIP) was a famous Admiral during the war although I don't know much about him.

Our paths crossed once or twice but he was generally lost up in the wilds of Scotland whilst I pottered around with AMH and Air Hanson.

I worked with Peter Walker at AH and as you say a great guy and a great loss. As were Colin Bates and 'Spotty'. Cripes !! Also John 'Ackers' bit the dust, Nigel Thornton and Tim Ridgeway. An Awful chapter in the SW London scene.

That said I have many happy memories, they were interesting times.


G.

Democritus

Not forgetting Peter Faulks and Tommy Sopwith's first wife lost in that AMH Bell 47 accident in 1975. I was passing through Alan Mann's on that awful day just after the news came through.

JP is now retired to Pembrokeshire and the last I heard about three years ago he was flying tugs at a gliding school.

Dennis Kenyon

I just have to drop in at the mention of the Alec Parker name as I have a neat tale to tell ... (hope he gets to read this)

It would have been circa 1974 or possibly 75 when I first met dear Alec ... who at that time was working for Sutton Seeds. He was instrumental in buying one of the early Enstrom 28A models, G-BBHD, a blue machine I seem to recall! I think I did his type conversion at Shoreham. A truly lovely big hearted guy for sure.

But here is the ditty. Apparently he used to lift-off for duty most mornings which involved flying over an office block. On several occasions he spotted a girl leaning out of the office window waving. Naturally he waved back. After a few occasions, he gets back from a sortie one day to find a hand written letter on his desk. It was an invitation to meet on a blind date and was signed ... 'From the one who waves.'

Alex was a single man at the time so promptly dropped in to the offices to enquire about said lady being the 'The one who waves.'

And yes, they did meet and carried on the friendship ... and in no time were married. Isn't that story one for the woman's magazines! So ladies ... don't wave at helicopters. As they say - you may just get what you wish for!

Alec, if you are out there, please drop me a line. Dennis Kenyon.

TRC

VFR

It was in Bilbao.

displaced islander

jpinx do you remember this Yankee Whisky, i think

http://picpaste.com/Yankee_Whiz-BXLQMsdC.jpg

jpinx

Not sure about that photo....

bluesafari

is that CJG at the controls?

displaced islander

Outside Raasay House, John ! But before the epic, night sea crossing during a westerly gale (now a legend) and post the buttered daffodil tasting.

jpinx

Good grief !!! .. I thought that had been mercifully forgotten.! The memory brings back the flavour! RJMcD Has a lot to answer for!

griffothefog

Ok, so I had done my LPC with Pat Orchard and it had gone well... Some weeks later JP said he wanted to fly with me as a sort of line check, so we launched somewhere over Edinburgh and he asked me to simulate a photo sortie by hovering at 2000 feet... No problem 😛
Then he said "let's go backwards at 20-30 knots". I didn't really feel in my comfort zone doing this but he was the boss so.... And then he chopped the throttle 😱
I thought "mother ****er" but he was determined it was to be recovered all the way to the ground... I think it was over a golf course we used to land at while doing the "eye in the sky" for radio Forth.....
Well, I made it and I think the circle of trust was established on that morning..
John, I wish you all the very best

jpinx

Pat Orchard (known as Rick in his military days) was a brilliantly smooth and capable pilot and instructor. We had lots of fun doing "mutual training" flights for annual checks, etc. As a member of the Panel of Examiners, he rose to the top of his profession. I am forever indebted to him for putting up with my more hard-nosed attitudes, but we worked very well as a team. A gentleman in every way, he didn't like to push people too far out of their comfort zone -- that tended to be my job

Fareastdriver

When I was based in Shenzhen I had to fly one of those approaches once a month to keep my rating in date. Bring a training trip we could only do it at the crack of dawn and the procedural circuit was incredibly long and high. It was a real pain in the neck and the scenario around the checkerboard was wasted.

However medivacs at night gave one a fantastic view of Hong Kong with all the lights on. Should we pick up a Chinese National from a platform we were routed low level directly across Victoria Harbour, then between Lantou and the New Territories to the Pearl River and onwards to Guangzhou. They built a bridge across to Chep Lap Kok but it didn't seem to make any difference to our transit height.

Departing from Shenzhen and crossing Hong Kong outbound you could tell when you crossed the border between China and Hong Kong. The Neons changed from all red to another series of colours.

Flying Bull

Hi,
found an old photograph from my time in GB, when I had the pleasure to visit the airshows with the Sharks (I towed the caravan )

in higher resolution:
http://www.polizeifliegerstaffel.de/test/Sharks.jpg

Pittsextra

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2786225...n/photostream/

Fantome

FLYING BULL - please resize your massive photo

http://www.pprune.org/pacific-genera...ng-pprune.html