The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

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500N
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#221 Post by 500N » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:15 pm

Thanks. I forgot it was a ship. Thanks for the explantions.

My only experience with helos is refueling them which was good fun - showing a glass jar of fuel
to the pilot through the window ! and as a passenger and roping from them. I like Helicopters !

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#222 Post by CharlieOneSix » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:25 pm

Yes, same procedure offshore for refuelling - one pilot gets out to keep an eye on deck operations and oversees the fuel sampling both before and after refuelling, making sure the water test capsule is clear but goes green both times by spitting on it. :)

Re the nets - they had to be properly tensioned otherwise skid undercarriage helicopters could get snagged in them if they yawed slightly as they took off. If I remember correctly this was a particular problem with the Bell 212 and a mod was designed and fitted to the aft edge of the skids so snagging could not occur.

Edit: in fact here it is....
212.jpg
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#223 Post by FD2 » Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:15 pm

Charlie One Six:
That was excellent!! Ten years earlier and it could have been us together on our way to the Western Pacesetter 1 or some other exotic destination. That was a real trip down memory lane - thank you.

About all I have from that time is this one taken landing on the 'Buchan Alpha' - I do remember that the teetering head meant that the Bell 214ST wasn't very easy when there was a lot of turbulence through and around the drilling derrick, compared to aircraft with a conventional rotor head. I probably took it about 1985. Is that the rad alt digital readout still showing 149 ft over the sea?
B214ST landing on 'Buchan Alpha'.jpg
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#224 Post by 500N » Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:22 pm

Charlie

In the video,you were flying at 3000 ft.

Any reason you transit at 3000 ft and not at a lower flight level ?

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#225 Post by rgbrock1 » Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:30 pm

500N wrote:Thanks. I forgot it was a ship. Thanks for the explantions.

My only experience with helos is refueling them which was good fun - showing a glass jar of fuel
to the pilot through the window ! and as a passenger and roping from them. I like Helicopters !


Roping from them? As in fast-roping? As in air assault? As in exit stage left from a Sh*thook? :))

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#226 Post by CharlieOneSix » Tue Nov 17, 2015 7:39 pm

500N - Flying on the North Sea was/is very much like flying airways. Generally - from Aberdeen this is - you flew at 3000ft outbound and 2000ft inbound. The routes were based on the Aberdeen VOR - a ground based beacon from which you could select a magnetic track, even though you actually maintained this using GPS. The routes were separated by 3° so for example you flew out on the 050° radial to the Gryphon at 3000ft and inbound on the 047° radial at 2000ft. You departed from the outbound radial about 10 miles from your destination and started a let down.

I don't know what happens nowadays but if I remember correctly Aberdeen lost radar contact at about 90 miles from the radar head. When I retired there was talk of radar repeaters being fitted on some platforms but I don't know if that has happened. I'll dig out a map of the Aberdeen route structure and post it later as SWMBO has just arrived home with haddock and chips from the local chippie........

FD2 wrote: Is that the rad alt digital readout still showing 149 ft over the sea?

FD2, no, that's the VNE readout - you must have been very light as 150 was max VNE. #:-s I hated the Buchan with those long flare arms when you were heavy - f*****g Buchan in my parlance. :))
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#227 Post by CharlieOneSix » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:43 pm

500N - the Helicopter Main Route structure out of Aberdeen and Sumburgh (Shetland) is shown below. The meandering line from north to south at which the routes end is the delineation between British and Norwegian sectors for oil/gas exploration.

hmr.JPG
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#228 Post by 500N » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:50 pm

Thanks, great explanation, fully understand.

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#229 Post by FD2 » Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:48 pm

Water landings

Intentional water training was important for operators of the Sea King or S61 aircraft with their boat hulls. At Aberdeen both Bristow and British Airways Helicopters practised at nearby freshwater lochs. Here is a Bristow aircraft taxiing around the Loch of Skene:

Bristow S61N Loch of Skene.jpg
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The Canadian Armed Forces operate the Waterbird Course:

CAF Waterbird training.jpg
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and finally, I don't know whether this was an intentional ditching of if something went wrong during water training but it's quite a nice scene - perhaps the onlookers have brought out some tea and cakes for the engineers!

KLM S61N PH-NZD shutdown on water.jpg
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#230 Post by FD2 » Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:53 pm

It's coming up to that time of the year so here is a slightly altered photo from a Christmas card someone sent me! I think it's a Mk 1 Wessex?

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#231 Post by FD2 » Tue Nov 17, 2015 10:24 pm

More shots of the Hiller 12.

Here is a photo of a 705 Squadron UH12E. Great little machine but very fast in autorotation.

Hiller UH12E.jpg
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And in civilian use with Bristow Helicopters in Trinidad - a lovely pair of floats!

Bristow Hiller UH12 Trinidad 1962.jpg
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#232 Post by CharlieOneSix » Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:45 pm

Ah, the famous Trinidad belle!

I did my first helicopter solo in XS166 and hadn't got a photo of it so thanks for that. In 1976 it became G-BDOI and was owned by Helicopter Exporters (UK) Ltd. It was then quickly sold to Helispray Ltd for crop spraying operations and then sold in '86 to 'Helicopters For Industry' before it went to Hungary in 1993 as HA-MIJ. Many of the ex-RN Hillers met their end spraying although as far as I can tell this one was retired over there...
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#233 Post by Heli » Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:54 am

CharlieOneSix wrote:
I did my first helicopter solo in XS166 and hadn't got a photo of it so thanks for that.


As did I B-)

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#234 Post by FD2 » Wed Nov 18, 2015 4:42 am

XS162 first flight with Trevor Lockwood ^:)^ and XS700 first solo :D . XS166 doesn't appear to have been around 705 at the time and XS165 had to be repaired after EOLs with Neil Anstis! #:-s

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#235 Post by hico-p » Wed Nov 18, 2015 5:54 pm

mmmm ... yes I was the unfortunate with a flipped 76. It was the first in the UK, certainly for BAH (seen in this photo of myself and Andy O'Pry near Stratford - used for the January 1980 front cover of Rotor & Wing). Anyway John Millward and I took BZAC off to the Forties for night deck trials - it was blowing a hoolie and the first time I had done 200 knots ground speed in a chopper. Just as we we were leaving the field, the main gear-box chip light came on - not so good with a brand new a/c so we landed back on the "B" to consult Aberdeen. Having been advised to wait until morning, we secured the a/c on the deck (unfortunately no blade cuffs had been put on board) and retired for the night.
At 3 a.m. I was woken up to be told the helicopter had blown over (wind gusting now past 60 knots or more). We were not allowed on the flight deck and the next morning because of problems with cranes and the B platform being the main collection point for the whole field, the rig boss was making the decision to chuck our beautiful broken baby over the side ... luckily a brave guy managed to crane it down to the pipe deck, where eventually it was shipped back to Abz and Gatwick; rebuilt at vast cost I imagine, but always seem to fly thereafter with a twist in the tail!!
The incident investigation revealed that the helideck had recently been refurbished and that at least one of the tie-down rings had a defective weld - sadly this was on the upwind side and when it broke the aircraft catapulted over on to it's side.
Whatever ... not such a great event to happen when you're the project pilot!!
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#236 Post by CharlieOneSix » Wed Nov 18, 2015 7:01 pm

Oh!! I didn't know it was you, hico-p!! That must have been a sickening feeling.

A not so similar story which could have ended in tears - did you ever operate to the Lay Barge 25? On the KLM contract in the late 70's I shut down on it for the first time off the Dutch coast one day and we toddled off below to have lunch. When we went back on deck later I was horrified by what I saw. On each side of the barge were two mobile cranes on a kind of railway track which ran almost the whole length of the barge. No-one told me that because the helideck obstructed the travel of the cranes, the bit of it on each side that was in the way of crane operations could be lowered through 90°. Unbelievably this is what they had done and my poor Bolkow 105 - our previous mutual steed, hico-p - was sitting there with about a third of the skids with clear air under them. As well as a brown trouser moment I nearly wet myself with the possible consequences and as you know I'm built for comfort not speed but I've never moved so fast in my life!
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#237 Post by FD2 » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:19 pm

hico-p

I remember the incident well - we all felt for you two - there probably wouldn't have been many bad tiedown points around, except the one that really mattered. BAH had produced a car sticker saying 'We have the Spirit' which some clever sod changed to 'We had the Spirit'. Sikorsky's choice of the name 'Spirit' for the S76 never caught on, did it? The BA livery was one of the better ones for the S76 imho - a touch of class!

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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#238 Post by CharlieOneSix » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:47 pm

Just found a rather poor photo of the LB27 online - the helideck is amidships and you can clearly see it folded down so that the cranes could trundle up and down. What a heap it was !
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#239 Post by hico-p » Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:55 pm

Hi FD2 - yes there were a few jibes around the crew-room .... and yes, the name disappeared into the ether!!

Charlie - I vaguely remember that barge, but there quite a few crappy old hulks floating around in those days ...! I was once tasked to shut-down a Wessex 60 on a wallowing beast - the problem being that as soon as the rotor speed started dropping, we started developing ground resonance - a soft main olio - definitely not good news - and so eventually gave up and buzzed back to North Denes.

After the beauty of the Spirit, I moved to the more matronly shape of the Westland 30. Much maligned during it's short life, but it was fun to fly and at least didn't suffer the occasional porridge stirring antics of the Wessex and Sikorsky 58 family!! This was a marketing shoot on Shelf Driller.
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Re: The Ever Growing Helo Photo Thread

#240 Post by CharlieOneSix » Fri Nov 20, 2015 10:24 pm

Ah, the helicopter equivalent of the fixed-wing 'Shed'! I only flew it once, the first prototype G-BGHF in 1980, on a evaluation flight with the Westland TP Roy Moxam. Enjoyable to pole around but couldn't take anything of note very far at all. I remember some wag in BCAL saying that with a full load you could just fly with IFR reserves from one end of Gatwick's runway to the other....

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