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Chris9.

The John French I knew was an engineer, he had a Wessex in Denmark and started Miri as Chief Eng. He must be over 70 now, he retired to Hampshire.

The only John French I knew was an engineer and I believe that he has passed away - couple of years ago.

This aircraft spent all it time at Zagross so never had the float fit. I believe that is why it was left in Iran. Photo was taken on the Zagross basecamp pad at about 8000 ft. Rig was at 11000' as far as I remember. The highest rig in the world. We did regular underslung loads to it with the 212 and Alouette 3. Load hooker on is Josef, one of the Iranian fitters. I was there for years, with Derek Cook first then as Chief Engineer.

Hi

I just came across this forum and found a few faces from the past .

Im not sure if you guys have heard , But Des Tweedy sadly passed away this year . Seemingly poor Des contracted diabetes , and it sadly got the better of him .

Des was a great bloke ..... I remember getting whiskeyed with him and a few others in house 2 at Asa Akpan , dont know how he made it up the following morning for the first flight ..... but fly he did !!!

Take care Des .....

I was really sorry to hear about Des Tweedy. Des was a real gentleman and a good man to have around. Knew him well in Port Harcourt days. RIP.

HP 12 - 1978

http://i587.photobucket.com/albums/s...g?t=1248092458

L-R Ken Thompson, Richard Hambly, Graham Chiverton, Simon Wijker, Unknown, Jan Schildkamp, Stewart Roberts, Cor Sanders, Jooles ?, John Hopkins.

That picture of pilot and management taken in the 70s...and all flaring at once :ok:

Such co-ordination is improbable today?

Mickjoebill

Those were the days you would dress smartly for the photo!

Big Thanks for the photos! West

Khark,,,or Kargh!

Most certainly is Kharg/Khark/Khargh Even the Iranians didnt know how to spell the name properly! while waiting to travel there with Iran aseman from Tehran the sign in the departure lounge changed spelling continually,,, very confusing for a non Farsi speaker! the white heli looks like it has the Logo of Abu Dhabi heli's
Was a shambles when I was there, would have been good in the Bristow days I reckon

I was also in zagross in 1977 with the then CP Harold Palmer, I believe he is still about. I went up there with a 212 for a while before transferring to Seis 4.

Some interesting pictures og G-BGWK here. Anyone know the story?

Probably the aircraft arriving in Lebanon, it's new home I think.

I'll look out for it on my next trip to Beirut. Is it on contract or has it been sold? I see it's still wearing BHL colours but no company name.

Just checked G-INFO which lists the owners as:

ABSOLUTE FIRE SOLUTIONS (UK HELICOPTERS) LTD
C/O HOGAN AND HARTSON CORPORATE SERVICES LTD
JUXON HOUSE, 100 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
LONDON
EC4M 8BU

Than exported to Lebanon so I guess it has been sold.

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...1/IMG_0077.jpg

The same goes for G-BCLD.

Rather bizare BHL acquired G-BDDA (ex BA, BIH, Bond) then moved it on to Lebanon by the same company name.

Any info anyone?

Looks like they are getting one of the ex SAR machines too:
http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...6/P1060758.jpg

Unless of course they realised after signing the contract that the SAR aircraft are too heavy or too complicated to demod necessitating the sourcing of another aircraft.

They'll be those limited edition S61Ns with the tail rotor on the starboard side.....

Quote:

They'll be those limited edition S61Ns with the tail rotor on the starboard side.....

and doors on the l!:ok:

Here are some more photos kindly sent to me by Ian White, the story here is that an Aviation Magazine photographer came up to ABZ to capture some of our finest at work, naturally (!) Ian White and Andy Edgecombe were chosen from the cast of thousands. I think that these were taken around 1986 ish, it appears that it was mid August at the time judging by the weather.

Planning the Mission, empty coffee cup at the ready.
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09013.jpg

Andy strapping the beast to his bottom
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09007.jpg

Eng sweltering in the sun, waiting for action
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09005.jpg

Happy Bears boarding (note the happy ground dolly in her wellies)
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09003.jpg

Almost ready for the 'off' to the exotic location
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09004.jpg

The evening return
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09011.jpg

Others in the briefing rooms - maybe others can supply names.
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...18-8-09009.jpg

TOD

Was BHL trying to convince themselves they had more aircraft at the time by painting one registration on one side & a different one on the other?

Sorry to be flippant but I couldn't resist getting that in before HOGE.;)

The nearest one in the after flight picture is Doogal Douglas. Died of a heart attack whilst working in China. Super chap, an awful lot of people went to his funeral.

Good to see that it's still the same clock hanging on the wall of flight planning in Aberdeen today - 23 years later.

They made clocks to last in them days.

XA

For the pedants; don't you remember those delightful double Beryls plus aircraft change?

Ian tells me that it is Simon Wijker behind Doogal.

I'm pleased to see that BHL (whatever cost centre they are called these days) adheres to the 'if it ain't broken - don't fix it' philosophy.

Regards

TOD

Double Beryl?

In the early Tiger days, it was double North West Huttons. Combined with the old original seats, it made for a sore botty.

Quote:

Rather bizare BHL acquired G-BDDA (ex BA, BIH, Bond) then moved it on to Lebanon by the same company name.

Any info anyone?

This machine was never operated by BHL, it was EI-CNL with CHC for many years, working on Irish SAR. It was one of the four machines OLOG bought off Dobbin when he was a bit strapped for cash after buying HS/Bond and this one was immediately leased back. There was another S61 in Brazil and the two 332L's G-PUMH/I which were operated by BHL or subs. The reason it briefly became G-BDDA again was to allow export CofA to Lebanon after CHC had finally handed it back.

Bristows had aquired 3 AS332Ls from Helikopter Service LN-OMI ex G-PUMJ and G-PUMH, G-PUMI as well as G-BDDA after the Bond BIH merger

G-PUMH is now in Germany for the Federal Police
G-PUMI is now in Nigeria as 5N-BKJ
LN-OMI is now at Norsk Helikoter
G-BDDA is now in Lebanon

Have those pictures been cut out from wanted posters? :eek:

I remember all those faces when they were youngsters. I was young once too! :ooh: Some good memories of working with all those individuals, and in the case of one or two, of nefarious activities in various locations around the world! :ok:

Famous at last. I've finally got my picture on the Internet.

Just proves Bristow never hired based upon "Looks"!:uhoh:

Obviously helped to have a dodgy tache or wacky sideburns in those days!

I suppose you could just about call what Paul Bentley is sporting a tache but it's not a patch on the Royal Marine issue ones of Donut & Streeter. The tache must be the only bit of the Bootneck uniform that doesn't get handed in when they demob!

Quote:

Originally Posted by 902Jon

It is going to the U.S to be broken up for spares.

I guess that the GPS was not part of the package as it changed that lorry for a flatbed trailer and was seen northbound on the A90 just south of Stonehaven yesterday (08/09/09).

A Gate Guardian for the new Bristow Aberdeen office & simulator complex?

copied via this thread http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/388...years-sar.html
From the Shetland Times Kieran’s hanging on after 40 years

http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/2009/...n%20Murray.jpg

Photo: Malcolm Younger, Millgaet Media

SHETLAND coastguard’s well known winchman Kieran Murray yesterday (Monday) celebrated his ruby anniversary with the airborne search and rescue service, an unrivalled record.

In a career that has lasted almost twice as long as the coastguard have been operating in Shetland, the 61 year old has taken part in some of the most awe inspiring rescues ever to take place in UK waters.

Joining the Royal Navy at 15 to escape his childhood home of Derry it did not take him long to discover that he wanted to take to the skies…without leaving the sea behind.

“We used to watch the fixed wing aircraft flying past and one day I spotted this little red-nosed helicopter, which I enquired about and was told it was a search and rescue Whirlwind. I thought, I fancy that,” he remembered.

That was back in 1969. Already a navy diver, he trained to join the airborne squad and “the rest is history”.

It was 1983 before the coastguard service was set up at Sumburgh to provide an emergency service for the growing amount of activity offshore, and Kieran was there right from the beginning.

He had started working for Bristow four years earlier and so when they won the coastguard contract he was already part of the team, moving to Shetland with his wife Anne and family.

Kieran has counted the number of lives he has helped save over the 40 years he has been in the job, and it comes to more than 1,000. The number grows to 4,500 when you count the number of folk he has helped in rescue missions.

Of those, the one that stands out above all others came in the darkest year for marine disasters off Shetland…1993.

However it wasn’t the Braer oilspill that he remembers, but the Lunokhods, the Soviet klondyking fish factory ship that foundered off rocks under the Bressay lighthouse on 11 November that fateful year.

“It must have been two o’clock in the morning when we got the call that this vessel was going on the rocks at Bressay. I noticed how bad the weather was when I was driving into work, seeing the junction boxes on the electric poles lighting up because of the salt hitting them,” he recalled.

The southerly wind was blowing at 80 knots, the ship was sinking and there were 56 frightened men on board.

“Visibility was very, very poor and because of the proximity to the rocks and because it was sinking we had no option but to winch from the left hand side, and that in itself is unusual.”

The first lift saw the coastguard crew manage to retrieve all the crewmen who were on the deck, and they were promptly flown to the Clickimin.

On their return an RAF Sea King had already been to the ship and seen no one else on board, so they had left for the lifeboat where there were casualties on board.
“We came alongside and thought, there’s thirty three people there, but they must have gone. Then all of a sudden we saw a flare lit from the back of the boat and they all appeared. We managed to winch them all aboard. It was standing room only.”

That incident has gone down in history as the largest number of people rescued in a single winching operation, and earned the team the American Rescue Crew of the Year award.

The other incident that stands out in his mind was very different. Christmas Day 1995 was the whitest Christmas Shetland has seen in recent years, so white that every road was blocked and the medical services were worried about the very young and old suffering from hypothermia with the power supplies down.

Kieran was on duty preparing for a quiet day when the call came in. “The snow was so deep you couldn’t drive to work, so the helicopter had to come and pick us all up. That day we just flew and flew and flew. We didn’t get back to the hangar for our Christmas dinner until 10.30 at night. That was very a satisfying day.”

Over the years the service has stayed pretty much the same, Kieran says, but the technology has changed.

The old workhorse Sikorsky S61 has been replaced by the highly computerised S92, a sign of the times that he does not feel at home with. “I’m not a computer person,” he admits.

Digital cameras have even taken the shine of his enthusiasm for photography, which has seen many of his spectacular shots from various aerial vantage points published.

Aside from the computers, the job has not changed that much, he claims. Outside the fishing fleet has got smaller, some of the fishing boats have got bigger and there is less work going on offshore, but inside the coastguard everything remains familiar.

It is a job he continues to love, his enthusiasm passing on to his 31 year old son Kieran who now works alongside him as a pilot based at Sumburgh. “You never tire of flying around here,” he says, a smile beaming across his face.

Post deleted due complaints.

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thats scarred me for life now, it's put me RIGHT off flying the 92.

:(

That is a pretty terrible image - Is there any explanation as to why three, I believe 'Man-kinis' is the technical term, are issued amongst the Bristow Ferry Flight equipment ??

Thank goodness the Old Man wasn't around to see that !!!

I heard they wuz RN Tropical survival suits!

I am never ever ever going to look at "numpty" in the same light again!!! and IM you should know better!!
T4

What an advert for Bristow:eek:! I very nearly spilt my beer!!
There is a future management team if ever I saw one.:D
3D

There is yet another re-organization taking place....reckon this time they may be cutting right down to the bare essentials if this new uniform issue is any indicator of things to look forward too.