PPRuNe Forums - Bristow Photos

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Rumour has it that Bristows operated/maintained a few plank wings over the years.
Any Twin Pioneer/Riley Dove pilots/engineers out there?

Apparently the MU2 (Pocket Rocket) take-off from the short runway at Warri was quite an experience! What on earth persuaded AB to buy that?

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...xedWing1-1.jpg

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...FixedWing2.jpg

I believe Shell wanted the Mu2 - but it proved to be such a drain on money and resources they finally got rid of it after some interesting engine problems. These included spins, 70Kt taxying etc etc.

It was a piece of junk.

Lecht Ski Lift - 1979

In February 1979, the Lecht Ski Company (incl Pieter Du Pon) contacted BP/Bristow to assist them position the first of their ski lifts at the Lecht. The conditions were such that it was not possible to erect the tow pylons from the ground so BP authorised the use of "Elsie" to undersling the pylons in place. As always, it took longer to do and I lowered the last pylon in the the dark. David Gold, a freelance photographer took a picture of the final lift and that picture won a prestigious photographic competition (See final picture)

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ad/lecht1a.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ad/lecht2a.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ad/lecht3a.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ad/lecht4a.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ad/lecht5a.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...ad/lecht6a.jpg

John

In 1992 Bristow had an AS332L2 Super Puma MK2 on icing trials between Feb-March

Has anybody got any photos of this machine

The ac was painted in the Bristow livery and looked really good. :ok:

Seem to recall Bristows also assisted with ski lift construction in Austria, assuming this was 70s 80s....has anyone got any photos of this, please or if not then any details of the contract? Thanks:ok:

WHALING - WHERE IT ALL BEGAN.

A little Bristow history......

The Antarctic whaling operations provided some invaluable experience for Alan Bristow himself and for some of his ablest lieutenants, most notably Alan Green who eventually became Sales Director of Bristow Helicopters, Clive Wright who became Regional Manager in the seventies and John Cameron who became Aircrew Appointments Officer.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...g/whaling1.jpg

The snippets in this post are reproduced from Peter Pugh's unpublished draft manuscript about Bristows and have been tidied up and edited for internet readability.

A year on whaling operations was divided into three phases. The first was from July to September when the S55 Mk1 Whirlwind helicopters were prepared for the whaling season and when the newly recruited pilots were trained. The second was the whaling season itself which lasted (including the journey to the Antarctic and back) from September to April. Finally there was the two months leave.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...g/whaling2.jpg

The two whaling factory ships used by Christian Salvesen(the Scottish company involved in whaling) were the Southern Harvester and the Southern Venturer. These ships were purpose built for both whaling and operating in the Antarctic and were noisy, smelly, uncomfortable and claustrophobic. Furthermore the flight deck was really too small, certainly for the Whirlwinds.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...g/whaling3.jpg

The factory ships had a displacement of around a hundred thousand tons which was considered large in their day. In essence, the bottom of the ship was a tanker with a factory built on top, on top of which was the flensing deck and built on that level would be the forward bridge structure which also contained officers' cabins, galleys and ship's dining areas. Amidships was a structure which ran across the main flensing deck, containing two sixty ton winches and was known as Hell's Gate. Aft was the main accommodation of three storeys consisting of accommodation for the crew, ship's engineers and helicopter personnel. On top of this accommodation were two funnels, side by side, with the helicopter hangar in between and the helideck aft of this and over the accommodation block at the stern of the ship. From the helideck to the sea was sixty feet and the ship when loaded drew sixty nine feet of water.

The aft accommodation was split by a large tunnel that led up from the sea to the aft flensing deck and it was up this tunnel that the whale carcasses were hauled to be cut up and fed through ports to the factory below. Conditions in the aft accommodation were extremely noisy, as a whale was hauled up every half an hour, and unbelievably smelly, as the whales, used as fenders, began to rot!
John Cameron remembered it vividly, " The smell was so powerful you couldn't even entice an "Airwick" out of its bottle."

The catchers were mainly ex-German navy submarine hunters, part of the reparations from the Second World War. They weighed in at fifteen hundred tons and could steam at seventeen knots and were ideally suited to the job as hunting whales was not dissimilar to hunting submarines.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...g/whaling4.jpg

The harpoon gun, invented by a Norwegian during the Second World War was the key to the whaling industry. The gun fired a harpoon which carried an explosive warhead and attached to the harpoon was a rope which ran through shackles and was routed to a clutched winch.

The Salvesen ships mainly hunted Balaena whales and operations were similar to antisubmarine warfare. The corvettes were stretched out to cover the maximum sea area and the helicopters were deployed to search a gap or take over on the wings. Flying would begin at first light.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...g/whaling5.jpg

The day began in darkness, when both pilots and engineers would muster on the helideck to pull the helicopter out of the hangar on to a turntable in the middle of the flight deck. As the hangar was too narrow to take two Whirlwinds with floats fitted, the helicopter was wheeled on a jack-up jury rig. The helicopter would be lashed to the turntable, the floats fitted and the jury rig jacked down and removed. Once the rotor blades were unfolded the pilots went off to get some breakfast while the engineers carried out pre-flight checks and refuelled.

The operational pilots got dressed in their survival suits and started up the aircraft. Performance in accordance with the Flight Manual was not really practical ; the pilots stuffed the aircraft with as much fuel as they thought they could carry often departing 300lbs over max gross weight. If necessary the ship was turned to give a relative wind of 45 degrees port or starboard. On the deck the rotor blades were lower than the level of the life boats and davits, which had to be cleared on lift-off. The technique in these piston enginned machines was, after cockpit checks had been completed, reduce rotor RPM to ground idle for a few seconds then increase throttle and power, lift off and go, making as little cyclic and pedal inputs as possible. Having cleared the deck dive toward the sea to build up speed and translational lift and you were on your way.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...g/whaling6.jpg

Once airborne the pilots looked for the "slick" which was the name given to the the give-away circles left by the whales tails as they returned to depth after surfacing to blow.

Bristow Islander still going strong at Headcorn many, many years later!!!!

http://www.airport-data.com/images/a...128/128791.jpg

What's the Part Number for the Speed Tape?

I flew this thing for a year and a half, great fun. The gaffer tape looks as though it holds the thing together but actually it stops the skydivers getting snagged on any protruding surfaces.

Hillers and Bananas

In 1960, Sir Miles Wyatt asked Alan Bristow if he would like to take over the running of Fison Airwork and effectively merge it with Bristow Helicopters so although many of these operations were not strictly Bristow operations they were under Bristows control for a time and many staff joined the company.
Therefore the general feeling is that Fison Airwork, like BEAS, should be included as part of Bristow history. Fison Airwork itself was formed from Airwork and Fison Pest Control and had many contracts in the field of crop spraying of which Panama and Dominican Republic were two. Typical equipment being Hiller 12s equipped with spray booms and insecticide tanks.
Thanks to John Odlin for the following pictures. John is the pilot in the Hiller and at twenty something learnt a lot about flying helicopters on the crop dusting circuit.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ndBananas1.jpg

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ndBananas2.jpg

Crop spraying has always had a reputation for being unforgiving as there is very little time to react if the aircraft suffers a malfunction.
We were having so many ' incidents' at the time that Dave Bond the Fison Airwork Ops Director said, "they are falling out the sky like bloody autumn falling leaves."

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ndBananas3.jpg

Bogarts Rice Farm. Base for Bristows banana spraying in Valverde Mao, Dominican Republic. Mao was a satellite base to the main base at Walterio, circa1960. Building was a rice shed also used as an open air hangar. Pilot was ............ a locally based pilot at the time, who liked to show off by rocking and nodding his Hiller on the building apex!

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...lleronroof.jpg

So as we can see from previous posts, Bristow Helicopters were always involved in mergers and joint ventures so a few of the company names and colour schemes may not be familiar as you will see in following posts.

Widgeons £45 per hour

And awesome cruising speeds!

The following images are of a brochure handed to myself by Colin "Dusty" Miller who came across it whilst clearing out old Bristow archives at Redhill a few years ago.

Note: that if you read the "about the company" paragraph in the second picture, Bristow Helicopters and Airwork (previously Fison-Airwork) were closely related to British United Airways Helicopter Division for a while.

In 1967 as well as being Chairman of Bristow Helicopters, Alan Bristow took on the roles of Managing Director and Deputy Chairman of British United Airways but as he pointed out, this was only possible due to the fact that he had an excellent team in place at Redhill.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...Heli-Taxi1.jpg

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Heli-Taxi.jpg

A Few More Pics from Morocco 1968/1969

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Chief Pilot Mike Ratcliffe taking it easy in TanTan

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...d/tantan3a.jpg

John Church busy in the Radio Room at TanTan. Note the HF set. Remember the HF on the Ws55s3? Trailing aerial which you had to remember to winch in before landing

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...d/tantan1a.jpg

My old mate and opponent on the Table Tennis table - John Nicholls

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...arfayajbwa.jpg

Yours truly in the flying gear of the day - Tarfaya 69

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...rfayagroup.jpg

Jim Paterson, Muhkta and yours truly. Tarfaya 69

John

It's great to see old ACDC in the background at Redhill, part of the furniture.

Superb photos, I'll have to get the old photo boxes out and see what I have and find out how to get them on here.
Pretty sure I have one of someone jumping out of a 55 in to the river at Eket. And all because the lady loves Milk Tray !!
Is ACDC still operational at Headcorn now, I hope so.
Hello to all old Bristow friends.

Rhys
[email protected]

Many of you will think this picture is a shameless attempt to drive up the ratings :)

This is one of the 412s I look after and as the "B" in FBH is Bristows, I think I can get away with posting it on this thread!

And for those of you who are actually looking at the aircraft - the rescue hoist normally sits on that boom thing.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...applicants.jpg

Engineers locked in the crewroom that day. Couldn't get near the girls for aircrew

Formations

Yes, I know! I obviously have too much spare time on my hands.

But my normal time consuming activities such as wife, house, garden and dogs (of which one was poisoned and died a week ago:{) are a few thousand miles away, so as I am stuck in a hotel in cold and gloomy UK we had better make the most of it!!!

So, with one eye on the rugby and football......

A collection of Bristow Helicopters flying in formation and quite a varied selection, I must say.

Widgeons G-APPR and G-APPS. Flight International, December 1958 (I was one month old!) reported both of these aircraft being air freighted to Persia under contract to Iranian Oil Exploration and Producing Co. for work on pipeline construction. However this picture is dated at 1959.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ions/2widg.jpg

Three Aussie Pumas.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/3ospumas.jpg

Probably at Warri Shell in the eighties. For a while Warri based 212s had a trademark zig-zag at the forward end of the blue cheat line as can be seen on LU and LT. Didn’t Eket machines have red tails around the same time?

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ons/3x212s.jpg

A flight of five North Sea Tigers on a photo shoot.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ns/5tigers.jpg

Australia 1982. B206, Wessex, Puma and S61.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a.../ozmix_big.jpg

Bristow-Malaysia S61s VR-BDO and BDN over East coast Malaysia.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...twomalay61.jpg

A couple of Whirlwinds on contract to IPAC (Iran Pan American Oil Company) As you can see, the rotors are perfectly synchronised which was achieved by judicial use of the rotor brake..........or so the story goes. Ian Clark and Ken Bradley being the pilots. Circa 1960

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a...ions/iran1.jpg

The Puma was operated as the fleet mainstay from 1979 with the first one being an ex North Sea Aircraft G-BFSV ( VH-BHO ). The picture shows Puma VH-WOF and Bell 212 VH-BEL. The 212s were used for general utility work and back-ups for the Pumas.

http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/a.../ozpuma212.jpg

The 212 formation was taken in Warri most probably 1990 or 1991. The picture was taken by Gunther Burmeister from atop the fuel storage facility...... I was holding his bag! The picture was one of two taken that day the other being the famous single aircraft nose pose with Chris Tait holding on to the seat belt adjusters. 5N-AJT was on 'loan' from Port Harcourt while one of the usual aircraft was on check (ALT I think). This one taken prior to AJT return to PH.

Gunter holds a treasure trove of Bristow photos....starting from Iran to Egypt....to Nigeria. Now if the sorry rascal would just post some of them!

I first saw his work in Iran....where he had enlarged some and made nice wall hangings of them. Excellent photos of an old man springs to mind!

Hasn't everyone held his bag or camera at one point or another?