Old mounts...

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TheGreenGoblin
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Old mounts...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Sep 17, 2020 4:50 am

Dropped into Duxford for the first time in two years yesterday with another chap who is getting over the death of his wife in this annus horribilis. It was the first time I have been back since I last visited with my late lamented brother, so there was a bit of pilgrimage about it as it were.

Weather was perfect. Everything was looking very spruce and all outside aircraft have had a lick of paint. Anti lurgy measures very well organised and enforced and good to see lots of classic aircraft movement and aerobatics from a Hurricane and a Spitfire. The "Thank You NHS" Spitfire dropped in for lunch as a well. Lots of activity in the maintenance hangars and clearly it is business almost as usual on that side.

Anyway I dropped by to send C16's regards to his helicopters...

Ton1.JPG
Ton2.JPG
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CharlieOneSix
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Re: Old mounts...

#2 Post by CharlieOneSix » Thu Sep 17, 2020 8:12 am

Ah, thanks for that, TGG. Did my third solo on type on that Whirlwind XK936 as a student and flew that particular 815 Squadron Wessex XS863 from Ark Royal in the Far East and around Australia and East Africa in 65/66. Great memories!
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Re: Old mounts...

#3 Post by FD2 » Fri Sep 18, 2020 5:29 am

I never flew the Mark 1 and this Whirlwind isn't in my logbook, but what a great job they've done smartening them up. After the Whirlwind had been replaced by the Gazelle in 705, we were living in MQs in Helston and at dusk one day I heard a MK 7 in the circuit - the quite unmistakable Leonides roar! I have no idea what the occasion was.

I remember laughing at a clip of six Sea Kings in formation and the person who had put it together had somehow managed to multi-track the sound of several Whirlwinds. :))

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Re: Old mounts...

#4 Post by CharlieOneSix » Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:47 pm

Memories - as a desperate stude on a solo trip, trying to get all 14 cyclinders firing on starting up the Leonides Major on a winter's morning before the instructor left his warm crewroom and started it for you! :ymblushing:
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Re: Old mounts...

#5 Post by FD2 » Fri Sep 18, 2020 8:10 pm

My instructor on the Whirlwind, an RAN exchange beefer named Max Speedy (DFC), came out to the aircraft several minutes after me so I could do the walk round and at least get in one attempted start. He'd then climb in the left seat and ask if I was having trouble starting it, having heard the pathetic put put noise from watching the performance from somewhere near the tail. Like magic the thing would then start instantly in his presence!

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Re: Old mounts...

#6 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:48 pm

A memory for Undried Plum - tracked down his raspberry ripple steed for the Rhodesian jolly in 1980.
G-BGYF.jpg
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Re: Old mounts...

#7 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:15 pm

I was twiddling my thumbs today and looked up some old rotary mounts to see what had happened to them. Some are in museums as shown in this old thread ....but I never thought one would end its days advertising a car wash in a shopping mall in Tenerife. =(( It's ironic that it ended its operational days at Bristol Lulsgate in the hands of a PPL in 1996 when it was written off after a skid was dug in on take off and a tail rotor strike ensued. I flew just under 1,000 hours in Lima Romeo from '68-'71 whilst working for the South Western Electricity Board (now called WPD) at Bristol Luslgate. I thought I wrote it off in May '71 when the freewheel unit in the main gearbox disintegrated when I was at low level on the side of a hill whilst letting down to inspect a power line.(Engine overspeed, not driving anything, big thinks bubble, tried to get to level ground, failed, big thump!)

Tenerife 2015 (With a fake tail rotor)
LR Spain 2015.JPG
LR Spain 2015.JPG (257.86 KiB) Viewed 1108 times
Near Hopton Castle, Shropshire, 4 May 1971.
SWEB---G_ASLR-freewheel-failure-May 71.jpg
SWEB---G_ASLR-freewheel-failure-May 71.jpg (42.04 KiB) Viewed 1108 times
Note that I optimistically put on the pitot cover.... :))
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Re: Old mounts...

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:18 am

C16, if I remember correctly this was not the only gearboox travail to afflict you in your career was it?

I also seem to remember a photo of a dashing young C16 standing nonchalantly next to his machine, having successfully landed in extremis, when a rotor/hub issue threatened to badly spoil his, and his passengers day!

What happened to those old mounts.
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Re: Old mounts...

#9 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:58 pm

TGG - your post set me off to find the fate of BCAL Helicopter's first Bell 214ST, G-BKFN, that I collected from the Fort Worth factory in 1982 and flew for 18 years until I retired. For some reason it was affectionately known as Fox Noddy and it had its fair share of escapades. I have just found out that the airframe ended its days in a heap in a forest in Canada in June this year. So a pictorial history of Fox Noddy...

At Farnborough 1982, immediately after arriving in the UK from the delivery flight. It crossed the Atlantic in a ship. Still on skids before we fitted wheels.
G-BKFN-Farnborough1-82.jpg
G-BKFN-Farnborough1-82.jpg (23.69 KiB) Viewed 1061 times
The photo you refer to TGG - August 1985, in a field a few miles from Aberdeen airport after a big bang when a main rotor drag brace fractured.
FN Balmedie1.jpg
FN Balmedie1.jpg (27.98 KiB) Viewed 1061 times
May 1986 - ditched, not by me, in the North Sea 17 miles off Fraserburgh. Another big bang when the collective disconnected and the aircraft was ditched using cyclic only. It was the same co-pilot in both incidents. Some passengers went for a swim initially!
FN Ditching1.JPG
FN Ditching1.JPG (32.68 KiB) Viewed 1061 times
FN went to Bristow at the takeover in 1987 and I think it was 2009 they stopped operating the type.

Christmas Eve 1990 - A vibration was noticed in the tail area. The helicopter was landed on an accommodation platform in the North Sea. There was severe cracking in the tail fin such that engineers decide to secure the fin in a hangar on board to stop flexing with the sea movement.

February 11 1999 - a fault in the combining gearbox led to an automatic engine shut down shortly after take off at night from the Frigg platform. We diverted to Stavangar.

In Canada as C-GDYZ in the firefighting role - with skids whereas FN had a wheeled tricycle undercarriage. UK CAA rules required us to fly with two pilots but in the firefighting role in Canada it is flown with only one pilot from the left seat using a bubble side window.

.....and finally, substantially damaged, if not a write off, following a tail rotor gearbox failure on 7 June this year =(( .
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/264248
FN Canada.JPG
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Re: Old mounts...

#10 Post by fareastdriver » Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:45 pm

[in the firefighting role in Canada it is flown with only one pilot from the left seat using a bubble side window.]

Obviously looking at where he was going to crash.

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Re: Old mounts...

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:12 am

CharlieOneSix wrote:
Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:58 pm
TGG - your post set me off to find the fate of BCAL Helicopter's first Bell 214ST, G-BKFN, that I collected from the Fort Worth factory in 1982 and flew for 18 years until I retired. For some reason it was affectionately known as Fox Noddy and it had its fair share of escapades. I have just found out that the airframe ended its days in a heap in a forest in Canada in June this year. So a pictorial history of Fox Noddy...


G-BKFN and alter ego C-GDYZ

.....and finally, substantially damaged, if not a write off, following a tail rotor gearbox failure on 7 June this year =(( .
That helicopter certainly has led a long and tough life. Sorry to see her laid low and even sorrier to read that her last pilot was seriosuly injured!
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Old mounts...

#12 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 20, 2021 6:56 am

Helicopter as badly mangled as my spelling... seriously.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
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Your destination remains
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