Savoia

.
Whirly551, welcome.

Would you care to elaborate on who your father was?

As you may have read, I am involved in sponsoring a website detailing the history of Ferranti Helicopters (and a number of additional operations including Alan Mann and BCalH) and so your father's reminiscences would be most welcome!

At this stage we are still collecting material with the view to launching the site 'sometime' this year.

Rgds

S.

whirly551

Savoia,

Of course! My father is John Austen and was based at Cranfield during the late 70's with the jetranger.

The majority of the time was with BCal and when they got the contract for the Met Police he moved to Lippits Hill until the late 90's when he retired.

I am sure he would be more than keen to assist you and i know there are a number of photos knocking around from then.

Rgds

Savoia

.
Whirly

Your father's name is not immediately obvious to me but, there could be several reasons for this. First he could have been on short-term (ad hoc) assignment to Ferranti, or he could perhaps have joined after Ferranti became BCalH. Alternatively your father might have been flying for one of the other operators ex-Cranfield, such as Trent, who I believe bought one of the Ferranti 206's.

Either way, any memorabilia, stories and alike shall be warmly welcome.

If your father has any interesting stories from his time with Metpol we'd love to hear about that too!

Best

Sav

helipixman

I remember Johnny Johnson mentioned in post 555 very well and it was nice to see him in the pic on post 549.

As a young lad of 16 I wrote to ATC at Battersea Heliport to arrange a visit to see some helicopters. A Mr Johnson replied and invited myself and brother to come along.

We travelled down by bus from North London and spent a fantastic day in the tower and lounge area chatting to him and the great staff. As the day progressed he pulled out our letter and asked how far away Leavesden was from our home.

To our surprise he then arranged for us to fly up to Leavesden in Gazelle G-BAGJ and even phoned my astonished parents to collect us. A true gent. I then became a regular at Battersea and flew in various Jetrangers on empty legs back to Fairoaks (AM), Redhill (Bristow) and Gatwick Beehive (Ferranti).... great days and I'm sure it would'nt be allowed today.

This was the day I got hooked on helicopters, now live, eat and breathe anything to do with helicopters and have photographed them ever since building up one of the largest collections in the UK. Sadly never learnt to fly helicopters but still hope to.

Helipixman

DennisK

For Whirly551 ... Would your Dad be the 'Bunny Austen' who flew for the old firm of CSE at Oxford, Kidlington in the 1970s. I met him on quite a few occasions when CSE was the Bell distributor and one of my Enstrom Agents.

Dennis Kenyon.

DennisK

Hallo Savoia ... sorry to be so late with a response.

In the early 2000s, the first new rules from JAR arrived and among many other items regarding training types that could be approved such as ... 'no swing-over' dual controls (whither the Robinson breed!) an additional stipulation was 'no helicopters with more than four seats! It seems to have been largely ignored by the CAA but I understand now that EASA are holding the reins, the requirement is to become law. Anyone out there in Belgrano land who can quote the latest position?

If that IS the new situation as I am assured .. for ab initio training, we can kiss goodbye to AS350, B206, MD369, Enstrom 480 and of course the new R66! Ain 't this all good fun!

Fly safe out there.

Dennis Kenyon.

Savoia

.
Ciao amico Dennisimo!

While nothing to emerge from Euroland or the UK in terms of senseless legislation astonishes me anymore, I am at a loss to understand the rationale behind this 'four seat or more' ban on training aircraft!

Elipix: Your photographic pile is genuinely impressive and has certainly illuminated this thread in a wonderful way.

Regarding your aspirations aloft .. you never know, just sometimes life can surprise us and the way forward in the pursuit of our goals becomes a little clearer but, it does seem as though we may need to start a 'Nostalgia Flying Fund' lol!

On the previous page Planemike wrote:

Is there anyone with knowledge of Yorkshire heliops from the 70's-80's who can respond?

Sav

wiganairways

I took the photo of Burnthill's G-WOSP, in her wasp colours doing pleasure flights at a caravan show,


the artistic shot, looking more like a toy.

and a couple of years later, she was painted brown - or should I say coffee - colour for the Maxwell House sponsored, 'Eye in the Sky' traffic reports for Radio Clyde.

Savoia

.
Wigan: The first image made a previous appearance on page 6.

WOSP (a Bell) was originally delivered to 'Wasp Helicopter Hire' of Glasgow and was one of the first 206 III's in the country (November 1978). She was however preceded (though just by days) by the delivery of G-OIML (an AgustaBell) to Ferranti.

WOSP was one of PPRuNer Paco's former mounts.

Sav

wiganairways

Thanks SAV , replaced the photo.

G-NEWS s/n 2547,was sister ship to WOSP s/n 2545, came in about the same time, restored to the UK register last year, after a time away in the USA.

WA

stacey_s

Just recieved an old photo album after an AIDS episode ( Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome) a couple of old photo's, one of a Hughes 500 with red/white and blue stripes, with nth reg G-BEJY, and another of a Bell 47 which I re-built in 1977, and I seem to remember 'Old LAE' did the paperwork, G-BER-, can't make out if it's J as the last letter on the reg or not, seem to remember the aircraft came from South Africa to Bristow's where I was employed at the time and then resold?
I'll try and scan the pics later and post

S

Oldlae

Stace

G-BERJ rings a very tiny bell.
Regards.

griffothefog

G-BERJ was a Bell 47 G4A reg 1966, crashed during crop spraying in 1987 (not me!) and written orf.......

Savoia

.
Stacey: Sorry about the AIDS issue. However, being in the Middle East you should have picked-up on a rather handy habit they have of collecting wives. Once into the multiples the dynamics change considerably allowing one to migrate between the warmer climes in terms of spousal attitude!

BERJ, well, most interesting. Helipix posted a photo of AZAG on page 22. This was the persoanl mount of Lord Dulverton (he of the cigarettes). BERJ would appear to have been the predecessor to AZAG!

Awaiting your scanned photo!

Sav

Savoia

.
Herewith an article I recently read highlighting a geo op in Turkey in 1985 which seems to have gone horribly wrong. Written by the 'helicopter coordinator' for GSI (GeoSolutions International) on the project.

The photos are sh*te and without description and for which I apologise.

Sav

* * *

"I was given the Helicopter Coodinator's job because I had worked extensively with helicopters in Indonesia and in the Far East we used them for moving equipment and supplies. This operation was to be a long-line job, like is used in Colorado and places like that. I'd never seen anything quite like it before, not that it would have made any difference.

The contract arrangements were also strange. We were working for ESSO (Exxon), who picked Viking Helicopters out of Montreal, Quebec, and told us to hire them. We paid Viking, and ESSO paid us. But ESSO told us how and what to do with the helicopters. I suppose it was done this way to shelter them from any potential liability.

My job was to arrange for the fuelling, liaise with the Viking people, schedule the day's flying activities, keep up with the billable flying hours, keep up with the radio logs, and spend all day in the field as Loadmaster. This wasn't a very good deal. Eventually, they got Basil Warr, another ex-Far East hand and a Gravity Party Chief to help me. The only good that came out of it was that Basil and I both lost a lot of excess lard that summer. Of course the poor food helped.

Viking helicopters supplied three machines. They were Lamas, which are good for high altitude work. Two of the machines were shipped from the Sudan. The other was leased from Dollar Helicopters Ltd., in Coventry, England, and flown to Turkey. Viking's two machines were clapped out pieces of junk. The HF radios didn't work and they were constantly in the shop. Dollar's machine was fairly new, with working radios, and an engineer who came with it. He was a Frenchman, married to an English woman, who had lived in England for about ten years. He kept his beautiful red ellicoptre in good shape.

In most charter operations there is a chief pilot and a managing pilot. On this job, the manager was the Viking engineer. He was a slick talking Englishman who spent most of his time in the mess tent drinking tea, making the Frenchman do all the work. There was a lot of playing and not a very professional manner among the Viking guys. The chief pilot was a Canadian who came up from Sudan. He was a hot dog. While practicing using the long line, he banged the 55 gallon drum full of jet fuel into the ground a couple of times on the first day. Just as I began to think it was just one of those things that could happen to anybody, he hit a power line while sightseeing down a river. Fortunately, he didn't do much damage, and was able to fly back to camp.

The other original pilot, Mario, was Portuguese. He also came from Sudan. Viking sent in a third pilot, a Japanese named Tony. He was there a few days, and walked around in his Fruit of the Looms because of the heat. After watching his workmates, he told me that they were dangerous and we had better take care. Viking's manager ran him off, but he got the word to GSI in Ankara before he left. It's hard to take a guy seriously who walks around in his drawers , but as it turned out, he was right. By then, I'd been there 7 weeks, and headed for Singapore for 3 weeks of well earned R&R.

While I was enjoying my time off, the first helicopter accident occurred. A new pilot, sent to replace Tony, made a hard landing at a helipad in the mountains, a very hard landing indeed. It was hard enough to destroy the helicopter, though no one was seriously injured--unless you call a broken arm serious. By the time I returned to the crew, the safety brass from ESSO and GSI were there to see what was going on. They mostly bought the BS from Viking's manager and Project Manager, though the ESSO guy gave me a hard time because he didn't like the way Viking was running their operation. With no backup from either GSI or ESSO, I really didn't have much to say about things. I began to see why ESSO had insisted on a GSI Helicopter Coordinator.

The second day back, I was ordered by our Party Chief to stay in camp and run the radio, since the radio operator was out sick. About ten in the morning the helicopter was moving cables and geophones from the back of the line to the front. I couldn't get Mario on the radio. Finally a young turk came on and said there was a problem with the helicopter. He said , "helicopter go boom!" Things got pretty hectic after that. We sent some expats and vehicles out to the staging area where the call came from and found the wreckage of the helicopter and Mario dead.

For reasons known only to Mario--there probably weren't any, he flew into a 110kv high tension line which was overhead the pad where he had been flying in and out of all morning. This line was over 100' above the ground, so it was no problem to miss it. He was likely thinking of something else and forgot about the cable until he struck it with his main rotor. He must have been moving forward fairly fast because he snapped the cable, which was quite thick. It in turn, snapped back on both sides, and caused two grass fires. The wreckage hit the ground not far from where Mario took off. Mario had his head bashed in and was probably killed by the rotor while the helicopter was coming apart. It was a non-survivable crash so we were told.

Our GSI Safety officer just happened to be sober that morning, so he went out with several of the guys who normally worked in camp, and picked up the body. It was packed in ice, and sent to Diyarbakir for whatever the authorities wanted to do with it. They shipped it to Portugal, back to his family. The French helicopter engineer was in a state, so we sent him too. Since his helicopter was finished, his job was too.

It wasn't long until ESSO grounded the remaining helicopter, and converted the operation from a helicopter crew to a mule crew. With no need for a mule coordinator, it was time for me to go."

vfr440

S
Michel is still around, and accorded the respect as probably the best Al 2/Lama engineer who I ever worked with, that's for sure. Think he's retired now of course. It's a sorry tale you relate from GSI but it rings bells............

Didn't Dollar lose an Al 2/Lama on a geosurvey job in S America somewhere? Right on the top of a mountain but no casualties (I hope) I seem to recall.

But then a 2nd Lama sent to sling out the first one, also 'arrived heavily'. And then there were two............

Or is my recall all screwed up. I know, why don't we ask TRC - he'll remember if I am talking b****x or not...

Savoia

This is a somewhat belated response but I believe that if referring to the 60's and 70's the answer could be yes.

Recently there has been discussion involving a couple of Alouette II's which were assoicated with filming. Specifically, Helicopter Hire's G-AWAP (previous page) and Alan Mann's G-FILM on the Mann thread. Tragically, both ships were lost while engaged in filming sorties.

On the Mann thread TRC wrote:

It would seem as though a fair few of the commercial Al II's in the UK during the 60's and 70's were indeed engaged in filmwork:

When HeliSDW made his comment above on page 9 he posted a clip from the BBC archives which featured a Heli-Union Al II, G-AWLC, performing filmwork in 1969.

On page 27 an image appears of another Heli-Union Al II, G-AWFY, which was sold to BEAS and then Dollar. One wonders whether this may also have been engaged in filming assignments?

Another Al II appears on page 14, G-AVEE, being an 'Air Gregorius' craft - one which I encountered at Shoreham in the early 70's and, herewith, another Al II belonging to Air Gregory:


SA318C G-BBJE operated by Air Gregory as seen at Biggin Hill on 18th May 1974. The craft was registered in 1973 to 'Medminster' of Putney then sold to Switzerland in 1978. (Photo: Ray Barber)

Anyone with evidence of additional Al II's or Lama's used in filmwork, please do chip in.

Sav

helisdw

Savoia,

Many thanks for taking the time to respond, however belatedly, to my original question!

With the 1960s/1970s being a bit before my time, I wasn't sure whether the Al II had been a prominent UK camera ship - I certainly hadn't come across references to it before. Your research would suggest that I perhaps hadn't looked thoroughly enough!

The cynic in me suspected that Francophobia may have played a part in limiting its success/prominence in the UK - of course such attitudes would never prevail today...!

Simon

griffothefog

I'm pretty sure that airframe was bought by RBA helicopters in 1967 before Air Gregory and did a fair amount of tv and series work as a camera ship.
I know it was meant to work on the prisoner series in Wales but went tit's up and a french AII came in for a few of the episodes.

stacey_s

Sloanes 500?? Redhill Circa 1977



S you were right, jogged the memory straight away, the Cigarrette person it was, have to excuse the 'Hairy Youth!' well we were all young once.

Stacey