Savoia

Shane, that was a most enjoyable Flight article, grazie.

I'm posting (below) a couple of the more interesting images which appeared:



A stroke of luck to find a photo of the instrument panel for G-ALIK and which craft, as you may recall, appeared on page 47.



I never knew there had been a proposal for a 'Covent Garden Heliport'!



An additional Westland design planned next to Waterloo Bridge.



An S-62 goes swimming in the Thames opposite Battersea!

Geoffersincornwall

Have found some of my old photographs and the one below is an experiment to see if the Flikr system works OK. The picture was taken during a rescue back in 1970. 824 NAS was on Ark Royal, working in the North Sea during a gale when we were involved in two rescues. On the second one they sent a photographer with us. I'll post the others if there is any interest. The guy in the picture was a deckhand and we have just plucked him from the deck of his sinking ship.

Savoia

Geoff, a great shot!

The interest is confirmed!

What I have discovered is that just about every aviation photo in existence is of some interest to someone and for which reason I shall, when I get back to Blighty, scan what I have.

Senior Pilot

I fixed your link, Geoff: Flikr needs the image opened in a separate tab, as a .jpg, and use that url to embed.

ISTR you have posted these photos before on another thread, with the survivors having a tot with the Admiral while you were (no doubt) having a cuppa in the ACRB?

Geoffersincornwall

Thought I would practice with the new Flickr 'toy', I'll try again. Sorry about the repeats but these are what I have on board my Mac until I get to back to the loft in Blighty.

G

estepo

Post #1000. Congratulations Savoia - great thread which I always enjoy reading.

chopper2004

Looking at Heli Air Monaco's history page on its website they started ops in 1976 with an Enstrom F-28 and flew a jumbo load of passengers in its first year (as in 747 passengers

Unfortunately on the website its not a full proper photo of their F-28 so does anyone here remember Heli Air Monaco when they started up or have photos of the F-28?

Cheers

Savoia

Chopper: The Monaco Thread commences with a brief synopsis of Heli Air Monaco's history which I guess (without looking at the HAM site) is essentially the same. HAM is an intriguing outfit and probably the longest running (and most successful) helicopter airline in the world. Yes, they've had a few incidents over the years but, set against the number of trips flown and passengers carried, their safety record is superb. Interestingly, aside from 'flight seeing' operations this is probably the largest (in terms of passenger volume) single-engine public transport helicopter service in the world.

Heli Air Monaco, along with the Swiss operator Air Glaciers (which started in 1965) are two of the European light helicopter operators I greatly admire.

Re: the Enstrom, I'll try and dig up her registration and see if we can't get a better image and regarding the numbers yes, the little F28 chugged back and forth with (I guess) two pax, day after day all year round!

As with most things which are encouraging in this life the thread is very much a team effort - a product of numerous and varied contributions which combine to make it interesting. The exciting thing (if that's the right word) is that what has been debuted so far is merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the available nostalgic material out there (much of it being stashed away in the lofts, cellars and garages of PPRuNe members!).

Given that we just displayed a couple of Gazelles on the previous page it seems only fitting to take another look at yours!


PPRuNer Estepo's Westland Gazelle HT2 looking resplendent in the Malagan sun. Malaga Airport January 2009 (Photo: Brian Richards)

TRC

We've used HAM aircraft lots of times.

Including in Corsica, Morocco, Hungary and in Dubai.

The Dubai job required a 350 to be taken to bits, flown on a 747F, re-assembled for a couple of day's work and then taken to bits and sent home again.

Have some pics somewhere........

Love the exhaust plume in the pic above btw.

Geoffersincornwall

PH-NZD - in Ceuta North Africa. Short term contract for 5-6 months replacing a 412 on the Malaga run. 3 Brit pilots (Gerry Tompkins, Pete Whalley and yours truly plus Brit engineer Paul Draper and local fitter Francesco.





PH-NZK - en route Den Helder (NL) to Port Alberni, Vancouver Island for major overhaul at Coulsons. Via Liverpool, Halifax, Wawa, Thunder Bay, Winnepeg, Calgary, Kamloops (where this picture was taken)






The Ferry Crew - 2 x Coulson engineers plus Gerry and yours truly

(when you fly across Canada low level VFR you come to the conclusion that there is only one word to describe it - EMPTY. You could be forgiven for thinking that what the world does not need is another tree or another lake. A place of tranquility and quiet beauty.)

Geoffersincornwall

G-SPEY on TH Duty - Whatever the pilot community thought of the programme it was immensely popular with the public and enjoyed the best ratings of any Channel 4 programme. Anneka was great to work with and here she is with my Mum and Dad and my two daughters. The eldest daughter was given the silver 'seal' by Anneka which was the 'Treasure' on the episode that finished at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary. Great team, great fun and thoroughly professional bunch.

G.

PPS - Dad was fitter in the FAA during the war. Apparently he joined up as a 16 year old seaman but was found on the dockside at Pompey with his head under the bonnet of a truck when a burly RAF Sergeant, charged with recruiting trainees for the Air Arm said 'ello ello, just the kind of lad we need, sign here young man and join the greatest bunch of aviators the world has ever seen'. He did, became a Leading Air Mechanic and worked on Seafires, Corsairs, Albecores and Swordfish.

Savoia

Geoff,

.. and I also came across this ...

Nigel Osborn

Interesting seeing Gerry with grey hair!! I remember him as a young fresh faced lad in Doha straight out of the RN.....told us he had flown with Prince Andrew at Yeovilton!!!!!!!!!!!!

Geoffersincornwall

In my dreams ........ don't let the wife see that. Actually on one occasion I was lucky enough to spend a rare day off during the 6-week shoot on the beach in Wales with Anneka (in bikini) ........ but had to share her company with the rest of the production team.

It was during one shoot in North Wales that SPEY made it to 20,000 feet - well 19,150 as I chickened out when the rate of climb dropped off. It took a while to get down!

G.

Geoffersincornwall

I was visiting the ACRB at YL on an away day from CU (dangerous territory for a 'pinger'). Shared my breakfast table with a jungly puke who sat opposite me reading the Daily Mirror. I was reading the back pages whilst he worked his way through the inner contents. When I finished my bacon and egg I peered across at the figure hidden by the newspaper and thought I recognised the pate. When he put the paper down it turned out to be Prince Charles. I've been dining out on the story of how PC and I had breakfast together ever since.

G.

Tarman

Geoffers,

Don't ask me how I found this, but it may revive some fond memories for you

Anneka didn't really do it for me at the time, but after seeing this;


I have seriously changed my mind.

Sorry for the thread drift Sav !

Tarman

Savoia

Bravo!

Quote:

It was during one shoot in North Wales that SPEY made it to 20,000 feet - well 19,150 ..

Ah well, you've beaten my ceiling then which was 17,800ft in a 206L pulling out of Porgera goldmine in Papua New Guinea. The 206 does get a little sloppy at those altitudes! Was your ascension related to SPEY's role as a comms craft for your lady friend?

Tarman: I think this thread probably thrives on such drift! (And Senior Pilot's well worn tolerance!)

More AgriCopters ...


Bell47 Lincolnshire c. 1980's

I'm sorry to say that I have failed miserably in my attemp to decyper the registration of the above Bell. Its something like G-BOWI/J etc.


A Hungarian registered Alouette II (SA318C) ha-ppi-ly douses a field in the region of Székesfehérvár c. 2009


HA-PPI demonstrating the Alouette II's chameleon-like ability (and aesthetic symmetry) in accommodating spray gear as though it were a natural extension of her airframe!

And ..


A Puma from the Argentine hospital ship Bahia Paraiso (painted white in accordance with the regulations of the International Red Cross) alights on the temporary helideck of the good ship SS Uganda during a repatriation flight for wounded Argentine soldiers. June 1982

spinwing

Mmmm ....


........ The 206 does get a little sloppy at those altitudes! .......


Yes ... a bit like trying to fly a bowl of runny porridge as I remember!

Ahhh .... Porgera ...... Hagen .... Goroka such memories

Nigel Osborn

Sav

Why did you pull up to such a height as the highest mountain is only just over 14,000!!
I twice took a Wessex 5 to 18500, first time from Culdrose at night with the mad Mike G, the second time at Labuan with a SAS Sergeant major who wanted to get the altitude record for the highest parachute jump in that part of the world! The jump was witnessed by Viscount Slim's son who although in his 40s, was a tough as any of his men.

Savoia

Nigel

In those days Porgera was owned by the Canadian mining corporation Placer. A couple of their senior execs had ventued out from 'Placer Towers' to see the Papuan operation for themselves and were due to return (a process involving a transfer to Hagen, then Moresby, then Sydney and onwards). A King Air had been dispatched the previous afternoon and failed to access the strip and so later the same day I was sent to retrieve them. As with most afternoons in PNG the weather with sh*te and I only just managed to creep in to Porgera inches before last light.

Over dinner the North Americans conveyed with sincerity that their impending departure from the mine was an urgency of the utmost priority (I think they had had enough) and that they 'must' depart the following morning by any means.

The next day Porgera was socked-in with all the gaps and saddles closed but .. there was clear sky in an oval above the mine and, reading the desperate expressions on the faces of the Canadians I promised to 'give it a go'. On the way up (spiraling in a corkscrew) I raised the office on the HF who confirmed that Hagen was open. A Specific (Pacific Helicopters) Puma had just crossed East to West around Wabag and confirmed that the WX south of Porgera was okay so, it was just a matter of overcoming the impressive layer of altostratus and which was eventually achieved at around 15,500ft but I needed a little more altitude in case I needed to 'run' (or even glide) back to the hole over Porgera while making the short crossing atop the muck!

Another PNG story was that of a young newbie with some fixed-wing experience who managed to get himself inadvertently into IMC. He was driving a Specific 'D' model and decided that 'out the top' was the best solution and which (I think) was achieved at around 25k. When eventually the ship came back to Goroka (via a number of other places) maintenance had to replace the strap pack!


Lord Louis Mountbatten (centre) and Gen. William 'Bill' Slim (right)

My godfather flew both Lord Louis and Bill Slim on numerous occassions and has several hand written notes from the two of them and which I hope to retrieve on my next visit to the UK.

Spinwing: Servicing the mountaintop repeaters was always interesting - trying to aim the craft so as to arrive over the 'pad' at the same time that everything ran out!