Tailboom

This has been a fantastic thread !! Hopefully Ive managed to post the next photo which I believe is G AYBE landing at the Hover's Factory in Merthyr Tydfil around 1975/76.

I have always thought that this machine was owned by Oldway Properties in Merthyr Tydfil and was flown by Julian Verity.

At the time, 1974/1976 there were only 2 privately owned Helicopters in South Wales (Possibly Wales) the Oldway Jet Ranger and my dads (Gerry Hill) Hughes 500C, G BBXF, based 3/4 miles away in Aberdare.

My dad was taught to fly by Mike Smith at Air Gregory in Denham back in 1972, sadly he was killed in his 500 in June 1976.

Some 20 years later I was about to learn to fly at Swansea Airport, one afternoon I bumped into Mike, who was there doing a friend of mine's LPC, after not seeing him for over 20 years I persauded him to teach me, it turned out that the Hughes 300 G AYLX that I owned a share in was the same machine that mike taught my dad to fly in some 20 years earlier !!

I have my dads first log book and it looks really strange when you compare it to mine and see the entry's as both pilots in command G Hill / M Smith with the same call sign G AYLX with almost the same exercises but with different dates 1973/1993


He bought his first Helicopter from I beleive Air Gregory, this is a picture of it landing at the Jolly Sailor Pub in Neyland Pembrokeshire in approx 1973. In the background you can see the unfinished Cleddau Bridge.

Mike would regularly drop in if he was in Wales and stay with us, the next picture is of him landing a dark coloured Hughes 500 at our house again approximately in 1974/1975, unfortuantely I can't make out the call sign.

Savoia

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Tailboom: What a great post, bravo!

Great to see GAYBE at the Hoover factory. It would be wonderful to discover who the special visitor was that day. One sees that GAYBE is still wearing her ground handling wheels (as per post #383) and which would have made my godfather cringe!

Merthyr Tydfil is of course an interesting place and this particular Hoover factory was where the bulk of their washing machines were manufactured. This same Merthyr facility also had the dubious honour of being the location where Sinclair's C5 'go-kart' was built. Merthyr was also home to Teddington Aircraft Controls who, among other things, manufactured the thermostat used by Rolls-Royce in the production of their Merlin engines. Another tidbit on Merthyr is that this is where, while testing drugs for the treatment of angina, it was discovered that one particular formula possessed certain 'elevating' properties. The drug was dropped as a solution for angina but went on to become known as Viagra.

GAYBE does resemble BAVI, Oldway's 206, which also sported a red airframe but in the scheme preferred by Bell (as opposed to Agusta) in the late 60's and early 70's. PPRuNer SandyToad posted a photo of himself lifting off with BAVI from his parent's home in Warwickshire on page 18 (post #359) as well as a copy of the Oldway brochure on page 19 (post #362).

Merthyr-based Oldway Helicopters sold BAVI to Goldington Investments of Hertfordshire in September '76 who in turn sold her to Trent Helicopters in March of '78. However, just weeks after buying her, Trent lost BAVI in a tragic accident which occurred in poor weather over the Channel with the loss of all on board.

I am sorry to read of the loss of your father in G-BBXF and which also seems to have been a weather related accident. God knows we have all been there Tailboom and I am recalling one of my own scenarios, also in a Hughes 500, where I got socked in a valley with nowhere to go and had to resort to drastic measures to get myself out.

Similarly sombre are your reflections on G-AYLX which, I only discovered some weeks ago, was the aircraft in which my dear friend Dennis so tragically lost his son. For what its worth my only piston hours (12 in total) were in AYLX, also with Mike Smith.

As you will have discovered many years ago, aviation is a bitter-sweet affair which can take you to the upper extremities of satisfaction one moment and plunge you into the depths of despair the next. It is perhaps the reason you can find helicopter pilots who reflect this polarity in their character. Many tend to be 'all or nothing' types.

Dennis will I am sure agree though that flying is for some a drug which, once hooked, places you beyond rehabilitation!

I dedicate this post to the memory of your father Gerry Hill and also to that of Dennis' son, Dennis Kenyon Jnr.

S.

Tailboom

Savoia thank you for your kind words.

It was interesting to see that you flew 12 hours in G AYLX with Mike Smith, as said previously Mike tought me to fly and I then went on to do my Instructor Course with him, I was aware of the tragic accident with LX, it deeply shocked and upset me, I have not met Dennis yet, but read all his posts and articles on Pprune and Blades with great interest.

Mike has been very kind to me over the years and I can honestly say that the 12 weeks I spent living with him and Mary at their home in Banbury was an experience not to be missed, I can understand how Mike and my Dad became such good friends, what a fantastic character !!

Savoia

Bell 47B G-AKCX arrives on the roof of a Paris department store in late 1947 as part of a promotional visit to France. The tailboom depicts the wording "Irvin Bell Helicopter Sales Ltd., Letchworth, England" a company which was established earlier the same year as the result of a partnership between Leslie Irvin (founder of the Irvin Air Chute Company), Scottish Aviation and the Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo, New York.



BEA S-51 G-AJOV Dragonfly known as 'Sir Lamorah' being readied for the service from Liverpool to Cardiff via Wrexham Heliport. Liverpool Airport 2nd June 1950. (Later sold to Autair).



The BEA Bristol Sycamore G-AMWG known as 'Sir Gawan' rests between sorties at Gatwick in April 1955.



Actress Florence Desmond, one of the wives of the late Charles Hughesdon, socialises with friends at one of her husband's rotary garden parties held at Duneborough House in Ripley, Surrey on 30th July 1956. (For more on Charles Hughesdon and his helicopter garden parties see page 10 of this thread).



BEA S-61 G-ASNL lands alongside the Queen Mary in the 60's.



The inimitable Mike Smith with an Air Gregory Hughes 300 pitching to a representative of the Metropolitan Police c.1960's. (For more on Air Gregory see page 15 of this thread. For more on the Metropolitan Police see pages 8, 13 & 14).



The Swedish racing driver Ronnie Peterson arrives at the 1976 Grand Prix in Nurburgring, Germany courtesy of Uniroyal's 500C.

S.

DennisK

A warm 'thanks' for my friend and flying colleague 'S' and 'Tailboom' for your kind remembrances and the dedication for my son Dennis Junior. My log book tells me I first flew LX at Shoreham in 1976 and I'm trying to recall the pilot who flew it in for me to try. (well built tallish chap - maybe Richard Reeve?) It was the standard 300C red/white in those days. I purchased the ship in 1998 when I re-registered it as G-ZAPS. At age 18, young Den passed his ;pre-instructor course' flight check in it with Mike Smith at Wellesbourne, just one month before the fatal day. Thanks to you all for the memories even tho' so uinhappy. But as 'S' says ... rotary aviation IS a powerful drug and I have to stay with it. AND my ownership of the B2 G-AWDU is also a fond memory.

Trying to forget the horror of March 2000 I can ... even now say that my last ten years in helicopter aviation have probably been my best ... Hoping to be a writer and aviation correspondent, since 2000 I've gotten to fly.

S-61 with my mate Glenn Stracey on SAR at Portland. BK117 air ambulance with Luke Morgan at Sterling, EC 130 with Maverick over the Grand Canyon, the Bell 429 at Blackbushe, then EC 135 with Essex ASU and ditto the Hermes version at Eurocopter, Kidlington. At some time, I tried the Westland Scout and Wasp for LOOP. What else. A couple of months ago I flew the Rotorway 162F with Kevin Longhurst and just this week, Jeremy Taylor's beautiful Gazelle for the new BLADES and only yesterday Robinson's R66. Some God took something away from my life ... but also brought something back.

Bless all flyers out there, fly safe. Dennis Kenyon.

Savoia

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Calls for assistance in building the early history of http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/443...licopters.html has yielded a number of emails including one today in which an image of G-BBUX was attached.



Bell 206B G-BBUX belonging to Peter Cadbury at Blackbushe on 11th July 1976 (Photo: Peter Nicholson)

The first thing which drew my attention was the golden Pegasus towards the rear of the fuselage which looked decidedly similar to that which appeared on Cadbury's craft. A little bit of research and lo and behold, she was indeed in the Cadbury stable. So, just as with Mr Chopper's disclosure on page 7 that Cadbury had owned an Ecureuil, this has come as another welcome revelation.

Cadbury's rotorcraft would therefore seem to have been:

G-BBUX Bell 206B Dec '75 to Sept '77
G-CHOC Bell 206B Sept '77 to Nov '80
G-JANY AS 350B Oct '79 to Nov '81

Trivia: Interestingly both BUX and CHOC were Bells as opposed to AgustaBells but both passed through Mann's at various points. BUX was infact bought by Mann's from William Monks builders merchants of Sheffield in August of '75 - the same firm that Mann's went on to sell G-WIZZ to in '77.

Almost as soon as Mann's took delivery of BUX it was sold on to Peter Cadbury. Mann's were doubtless involved in the re-sale of BUX to British Car Auctions in '77 when Cadbury took delivery of CHOC.

Thanks to Tarman we know that CHOC was previously D-HMAC and which one assumes was imported from Germany on behalf of Cadbury by Manns.

S.

DennisK

Good evening Savoia,

We all love this thread and the memory jogging nostalgic pics that keep appearing ... now you show G-BBUX which I flew many times before selling. In the early 1970s, I was pretty active in sales having sold 300 aircraft or so while I was with Spooner Aviation. I purchased two B206s one week and registered them consecutively. G-BBUX and G-BBUY. I sold G-BBUX to a Mr Bill Gates of the Monks Group but taught him to fly on an Enstrom from his Hunstanton holiday home which you could do in those days. Most of the flying was done at Norwich Airport. Being a weighty fellah, he hated the piston and in short time, I took the Enstrom, G-BBBZ back for the new Bell. The price for a new Forth Worth B206 was £84,000 believe it or not. The Enstrom 28A just £23,000.

AMH were the Agusta Distributor in the 1970s, but I purchased the above two Fort Worth machines from the Bell distributor, CSE at Kidlington.

Now who do I remember at Fairoaks AMH. The old boss himself of course, who was always bringing back boxes of huge fresh salmon from his Scotland home. He was also a good model aircraft flyer. Alan Mann sponsored the Frank Gardner Lotus Cortina which I raced against around 1967/68. I never won though! There was a Dave Green in the maintenance division. Chief engineer was a Jock something, a nice rotund fellow who was an ace diagnostic engineer. I was talking to Gary Savage just a week or so ago. Gary would have been with the company in the 1970s as was Ken Davies the Bell 47 instructor whose party pice was to autorotate to the centre of the field, touch skids down only to lift off for a 180 degree turn still without power.

I'm pretty sure Alan Mann raced in his early days. All happy memories for me and hopefully others.

Bye for now. Dennis Kenyon.

Savoia

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Bravo Dennisimo!

What is extraordinary is that for as many different craft emerge on this thread .. you have had some connection with most of them. Great stuff!

In Speechless Two's excellent recollections of his Rhodesian expedition on page four of this thread, he posted an image of the chief engineer assigned to their operation from Dollar Helicopters, one Roy Neep (below).



I now discover that there was a Dollar 206 bearing his name:


Bell 206B G-NEEP at Coventry, May 1989 (Photo: Bill Teasdale)

Is it reasonable to assume therefore that this craft was indeed named in his honour?

Some years back we had an engineer who requested if we could re-register one of our craft after the name of his girlfriend! He offered to pay the re-registration fees and so we duly obliged. As I understand it he took a number of 'saucy' images of his lass in various poses around the aircraft. Sadly I never got to see them.

This post goes to all the ground crews whose (mostly) fantastic work keeps us going!

S.

902Jon

Dollar had a habit of registering aircraft with company people's names.

G-CULL - Mike Cull was chief pilot & instructor in various operations with Dollar. He did my 206 conversion at Norwich.

G-ORME - Mike Orme was a company pilot and then became a director.

G-DOLR - self explanatory

G-NEEP - as previously mentioned.
This aircraft had a tracker system fitted so that British Gas could keep an eye on us - strangely once the circuit breaker had been found in the boot, the system never seemed to work
Many happy hours flying all of the above.

Incidentally, when Roy Neep retired, his position as engineering director was taken by a certain John Cloggie who is now a big cheese at Bristow

Comms Boy

Does anybody remember Tony New who from memory was the British Gas observer? He had the best job in BG, spent 3 days each week flying along all the transmission mains around the country. Tried in vain at getting a job with that section.

TRC

Dave Green and Jock Graham were Mann Aviation - the fixed wing mob in the next hangar.

It was Ken Summers. Ken Davies was the DoW's pilot.

DennisK

Ah TRC..Now I remember that wonderful Ken Summers... and course Ken Davies who I should have remembered as I met him up at Lord Grosvenors majestic place .... 'Tis the sinility of it all ... ten thousand apologies! DK

Savoia

British International S-61N G-BFFJ undergoing cosmetic changes at Dunsfold on 27th August 2009 (Photo: David Reeves)


And was transformed some hours later into this (Photo: David Reeves)

This BIH S61 was hired by Rainmark Films in 2009 for the production of 'The Special Relationship' a movie documenting the relationship between Bush and Blair.

The respray evidently took place in the Top Gear hangar at Dunsfold, taking just a few hours, after which the craft was dispatched to a hotel in Wiltshire which was portrayed as 'Chequers' in the film.

The aircraft returned to base, the paint was washed off and it was back in regular service the following day.

Does anyone know which country house hotel this might have been and, out of curiosity, which type of paint is used for these type of applications?

S.

Brilliant Stuff

Very nice.

Dfender110

Some painting is done with a material called Spray-Lat, it is put on thick with an air gun or roller and once dry can be peeled off in sheets with the residue washed off. Lots of production companies use it.

Tailboom

Here is a picture of my dad Gerry Hill flying Miss World 1972 into Port Talbot Plant in 1973, its a shame that I didn't have a picture from the other direction, but ive copied the caption on the back of the photo


Miss World Belinda Green Visiting Port Talbot Plant with Gerry Hill 1973, the reason she was flying in the Hughes 300c was that she opened the Aberdare Motorshow earlier in the day.

The Back of The Previous Photograph, I looked her up on the internet and her name is Belinda Roma Green and not "L"

The next picture is of the daughters of my Dad friend, "Frank The Bank", he was the local Bank Manager of the TSB in Aberdare around 1973, my dad used to land on a disused tennis court at our home, where he also stored New VW Beetles that were waiting to be sold in his VW Dealership in Hirwaun Aberdare


And finally G BAAN hovering over the new VW Passat in the Brecon Beacons again around 1973

helisdw

Stumbled across a website about "Alec Wortley Helicopters" that I thought might be of interest to those involved with the rotary nostalgia thread:

DR ALEC WORTLEY HELICOPTERS

The gallery section shows a number of B47 photographs, but mixed in with them are two containing B206s (including G-BALC) and two with a Westland Scout.

The site makes for some interesting reading - including an invoice from Dec 1978 that demonstrates how aviation was just as expensive 32 years ago!

Simon

TRC

It's always been expensive, but some costs these days have increased out of all proportion.

In 1972 ish, the hourly rate in the UK for a 206 was £60, about twice the gross weekly wage of a working man, much as it is now. However, the landing fee for a 206 at Battersea then was £3.00 (£1 per 1000lbs) - about 10% of said weekly wage.

What's the landing fee now for a 206 (if it's even allowed to land there now), and what percentage of the weekly wage does it equate to?

TRC

If it was done in this country it's more likely to have been a water-based paint with a gloss laquer on top. It stays on even in the rain.

I've been involved with the temporary painting of maybe 20 helicopters using this stuff, easy and quick to put on and take off. Five of us did a Mi-8 in black gloss in about 5 hours on, and a similar time to clean it off again.

There's an aircraft paint spraying company in the UK that have been doing this for years, and have got it sorted.

I have also been faced with a 355 that had been done in a rubbery coating that started to inflate itself around windscreens and doorframes in flight - not ideal - and a pair of 205's completely covered in Fablon. I would definately recommend that you DON'T do either of these processes, especially if it's likely to get rained on.

Savoia

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How thoughtful of Dollar to name his craft after his vital assets - well done!

Thanks for the comments re: paint. One tends to think of paint as being highly adhesive and I have always wondered therefore how it just 'washes off'!

Fantastic nostalgia by Tailboom and Helisdw!

S.