'70s School visit photo - Identify?Who?
 

This Wessex is pictured on a vist to Culford School near Bury St Edmunds sometime in 1973/4 at my best estimate. Pretty sure this was a RN machine.
Can anyone identify the aircaft, unit and if possible crew on this event? The associated display was pretty spectacular as far as I recall.
Was the pilot by any chance one F.C. whose signature was, I believe, to take off out of the chocks and after the display land back in them?



https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....20f3ae8f6b.png

Crab will probably be able to have some input on this.

This was the Royal Navy Presentation Team Wessex V, which visited schools and colleges around the country back (IIRC) the late 60s/mid 70s.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6c9e6cdfa3.jpg

Aha!
So can we find the who and when?

And a cracking draft it was too.
And lifting off out of the chocks wasn’t that unusual in the Wessex. And not a Crab in sight.

Before my day and a RN aircraft - sorry:ok:

I believe a certain RAF Sqn boss did exactly that as part of a large formation and, circling round said something on the lines of 'Crewman, look at that, some idiot has left his chocks behind' :)

From the Gourock and District FB page, no doubt someone will remember Mr Whitehead 🤔

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1c174bf5f.jpeg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....895b1e09a.jpeg

I think this was the RN Schools Presentation Team. A RN Lieutenant, a WRNS 2nd Officer and a RM Lt, I I think, plus a Wessex and crew, including I think, some maintainers. Their aim was recruitment and visiting schools was their MO. Most schools have playing fields, hence the Wessex, which officially belonged to 707 NAS and would appear at VL when in need of maintenance.
There was also a RN Presentation Team, comprising a Captain and assorted Conmanders, but their target audience was Captains of Industry, politicians and opinion formers. They mainly operated in conference venues, so no Wessex.

N

Slightly pissed of it didn’t visit my school, especially when I was in the CCF!

I was at Woodhouse Grove school ( near Yeadon ) in ‘72.
I remember a Wessex visiting & landing on one of the Rugby pitches.
The 5th & 6th forms , flared jeans & long hair to a man , were given priority & allowed to climb into the aircraft.
Us 11 year olds couldn’t get near in the limited amount of time it stayed for!

On 5 July 1967 I took a RN Wessex HAS3 of 700H Intensive Flying Trials Unit back to my old school for a recruiting visit. Can't believe that's 55 years agol! Here's three frames from the item which was on local BBC TV News the same day. Don't think anyone would recognise the white haired old man of today as the same fresh faced 22 year old!

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....dfb8484281.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0c6e358cd8.jpg

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....550ee66fd7.jpg

The Wessex 5 was used by 2 Sqn at RAF Shawbury during my time as a basic student. Although they were painted green with a red nose intake it was possible to see the words “Royal Navy” under the green top coat. I checked my log book and the registrations of the ones I flew on the course had “XS***” registration numbers.

We had more time looking at them than flying them because they were seldom serviceable. I was scheduled five times to fly my first solo on type before finally getting an aircraft to fly.

The emergencies section of the Wessex 5 Flight Reference Cards was the thickest of any aircraft I ever flew, before or since! As I was on a shortened course there seemed to be a practice emergency every few minutes, in order to get through them all. As practice emergencies were “the norm”, during the briefing for my first night sortie my instructor told me that to allow me to settle in, the first circuit would not involve any practice emergencies at all. As I turned downwind a hydraulics failure caption and the attention getters came on! I looked across at him and thought “You lying bu&&er!”. At the same he was looking across at me and thinking “You silly bu&&er!” because at first he thought I’d caught the hydraulic switch on the collective by accident. I hadn’t, and neither had he… we both realised at the same time that it was in fact a real hydraulic failure.

As we were based at the RAF School of Air Traffic Excellence, I put out a textbook PAN PAN PAN call, requesting the use of the runway, for a running landing instead of making the expected hover landing T, which was on the unlit grass. The controller told me to cancel my Practice Pan and use the grass due to another aircraft coming in to rejoin for a simulated single engine failure! My instructor just keyed the mic and transmitted “He didn’t say it was a practice!”

Panicked sounding reply from ATC and after a rapid reallocation of priorities we became number 1 for the runway.

We had Mk 5s in Cyprus in the 80's and they were fine in terms of serviceability - must have been the sunshine:ok:

Not sure about the emergencies section being the biggest - the Sea King was bigger and the emergencies section in the RFM for the 139 dwarfed that.:ok:

I don’t disbelieve you…..but I haven’t flown either of those types. :rolleyes:

As for serviceability in sunshine….better not mention 28 Sqn towards the end of their time in HK.

Sek Kong wasn't wall-to-wall sunshine - I used to cycle to work in me swimmies and towel-off in the changing rooms during the heavier downpours. Mind you, it was HC2s there...

Only 14 double sided pages in my Sea King FRCs, Wessex FRC long ago was donated to another pilot but the Wx 60 was very reliable in NW Australia, even in the regular 36*C days.

18 double sided pages in my Mk 3 Sea King FRCs red section.:ok:

SPLOT,who was `Mireille`...? #7

Towards the end of 28’s time they moved back to Kai Tak and had, on occasions, no serviceable aircraft. MOD did well to offload them to Uruguay!

Must have been very close to the end, they were still at Sek Kong when I flew with them in 1990. Not surprised they had serviceability issues though, no doubt the spares chain was being wound down to support Cyprus and NI.