Helicopter at school
 

My son's lower school recently arranged for a helicopter to fly in. Before landing it circled above the school to take an aerial photo and then after landing the children were given a talk about helicopters and how they fly. Before leaving it did a short hovering display around the field before doing a final circuit and disappearing off. The kids were obviously very excited about this and I thought it was an excellent way of getting them interested in flight at an early age.

Pah, when I was at school (late 70's), a Harrier GR3 (flown by a former pupil) paid a 3 day visit to our playing fields! Caused quite a stir, metaphorically and physically.

That sounds like a helicopter from Cabair - I saw them advetising such events at a recent education show at the NEC.

V1R

Wycombe: I can't help asking whether the playing fields were still in a fit state for playing on after three days of Harrier ops?!

Wycombe

A 3 day visit - what a dream.

Would not happen these days unless it sucked up a rogue rugby ball or Coke can and went u/s (or it was in Liverpool where someone would bound to nick the undercarriage!!!

Not sure where it came from but its reg was G-BYPA and here's a link to a photo (via CAA website)

http://www.caa.co.uk/applicationmodu...01&imgtype=jpg

The only damage caused to the playing fields was by the bowser that had to reach the Harrier on it's metal pad, and got stuck!

The school in question is The Duke of Yorks In Dover (a school with rather large Military connections, to be fair). For the end of year Parade in 2003, they managed to get a flypast of 4 Tornado GR4's!

The Royal Navy used to have a Wessex 5 (XT764/P-T if my memory serves me right) that belonged to their Presentation Team that went around to schools in the mid-70s. They used to fly in and shut down, give a presentation about life in the RN and then let everyone look over the aircraft. It then took off and did a display before disappearing.

It came to my school in Maidenhead a couple of times and the playing fields were in the middle of a housing estate! Can you imagine the uproar these days if they did something like that from all the anti-aviation NIMBYs?!!

I've seen Chinooks ripping around at low level in the vicinity of schools in Croydon - one was at Whitgift School a few years ago, the other at some no doubt venerated establishment in the Shirley area fairly recently... Think they might have been giving the CCF (or whatever) joyrides? Bet the neighbours loved it!

:ok: thats is a brilliant idea.. more schools should take an example from that one... i live near a helicopter training school. and they do pleasure trips and i love watching them but none of the children i know have bothered about them flying overhead whereas if they had an insight into the way it flies etc i think a lot more of them would be much more interested in flying one when they leave school..or indeed any type of aviation..:ok:

By pure coincidence (as my previous posts were about events in my own childhood years ago), my kids School had a visit from an RAF Merlin today!!

Feel a post to the Mil Forum coming on :ok:

Wilsons School (funnily enough, situated on the old Croydon Airport site) had a RAF Puma come visit a few years back. My younger brother was in the CCF and had a quick trip out over Croydon/Mitcham area.

my school had a lynx come an visit the littlies a while back. Funny thing is, ive no idea where it came from, cos i cant think of any lynx bases in the area!

ETC

I was at Whitgift a few years ago and I remember when they had a Gazelle and a Puma in arctic warfare camo.

This was back in the day when we were allowed to do a full platoon attack across the playing fields using blank ammunition. The helicopter was used in the display and it was really great fun. We were allowed to go up in it for a few (precious!) minutes as well which was amazing!