Forgotten pilots or flights...

[ian16th]

Wing Commander Michael J Beetham DCF. O.C 214 Sqdn.

Captain of the 1st non-stop flight UK to Cape Town. Vickers Valiant BK1
9 July 1959 Duration of flight 11 hours 28 min.

[Undried Plum]

Just out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?

[ian16th]

Just out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?

There are so many places that I wouldn't want to fly over, in a small a/c that would probably say, about 3 miles offshore around the western edge, calling in for fuel only when absolutely necessary!

[TheGreenGoblin]

Just out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?

It is a good question and only part of it is easily answered, as ian16th implies, and that is there are large sections of both the East and West routes that are inimical to human life (for many reasons), let alone GA.

The answers to the questions also depend on so many different factors, including current politics, bureaucracy and travel documents, through to clearances, aircraft's range, speed, make (lest one needs maintenance), backup (if things go tits up), local agents etc. etc.

I would hire an expert Africa hand with previous experience to be my agent and would probably prefer the East coast route (Italy, Greece, Turkey) and then down via primary targets such as

• Cairo

• Jedda

• Nairobi

• Dar Es Salaam

• Harare

• Johannesburg

[TheGreenGoblin]

From a brave stint in the ATA during the war, to Island Air Services Monique Agazarian lived her life with verve, grace and passion.

After the war, Agazarian got her commercial pilot's licence and got a job with Island Air Services, which was soon based at Croydon Airport. She became Managing Director in 1948 and was in charge of charter flights and flying passengers over London to see the sights from air. These were popular family treats, costing 15s to £1.15s (roughly about £10 - £40 today), in small aircraft holding 6-8 passengers and flew from Heathrow as well as Croydon until 1959. It is thought that these flights 'probably did more to introduce the masses to flying than any organisation'.*

A letter in the archives from AG Halligey, a member of her freelance staff, recounts a story about Agazarian being timidly reminded by the Croydon airport manager, after her marriage to a fellow pilot Ray Rendell, that pilots were not supposed to fly while pregnant. Agazarian actually was pregnant and as she became visibly more so would hold her handbag in front of her as she crossed the booking hall and only unhitch her skirt out of sight of passengers once she'd got in the cockpit.

Spike, her bulldog which went up in the aircraft with the passengers, was good for publicity as several newspaper cuttings illustrate. The photograph and cutting comes from the collection of one of her ground crew Clive Abbott, who would strap the passengers in the planes.

After Island Air Services closed, Agazarian continued to have a long career in aviation and was a pioneer in promoting flight simulation for training purposes until her death from cancer in 1993.

MoniqueIsland.JPG (49.52 KiB) Viewed 1740 times

[TheGreenGoblin]

Just out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?

There are so many places that I wouldn't want to fly over, in a small a/c that would probably say, about 3 miles offshore around the western edge, calling in for fuel only when absolutely necessary!

An interesting take on going West on a cross continental heli ferry flight!

The following morning, we are soon airborne again, and claw our way for the next horizon. We fly over the diamond mines of Sierra Leone before settling into Conakry, Guinea. There, I offer chocolate bars to anyone who wants one. Things move quickly and everyone is friendly. It’s a pretty spot, but only a fuel stop for our two Pumas. We’ve heard numerous horror stories of pilots on ferry trips being arrested in Guinea-Bissau, the country we pass next. One fellow recommended a low level run far offshore with the radios off, but we elect to cut straight across towards Dakar, Senegal. We call in like the good boy scouts we are, and of course, they demand that we land at their airport. Our radios cease to function.

https://verticalmag.com/features/my-cro ... adventure/

[CharlieOneSix]

Bristow did an interesting ferry flight with the Wessex 60. On the 7th June 1969, G-AWXX left Redhill Aerodrome for Gatwick Airport to enable customs clearance. The following day it departed on a three week ferry flight to Australia.

After 43 stops enroute it arrived at Broome, Western Australia, on 29th June, from where it was flown to Point Sampson. It had covered a distance of 11,164 miles with total flying time of 97 hours 30minutes.

The routing was:
Redhill, Gatwick, Lyon, Nice, Naples, Brindisi, Athens, Rhodes, Nicosia, Beirut, Das Island, Dubai, Karachi, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Calcutta, Akyab, Rangoon, Mergui, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Palembang, Djakarta, Surabaya, Waingapu, Kupang, Broome and Point Sampson.

In the '80s G-AWXX was owned by Bob W, an ex-RN helicopter pilot friend in Bournemouth who sadly died in 2013. I think he owned two of them and he flew them in 1987 for a film, Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". The Wessex are visible in flight at 0:28 and on the ground at 1:37. The CAA cancelled the registration of XX in 2016.

[G-CPTN]

Bristow did an interesting ferry flight with the Wessex 60. On the 7th June 1969, G-AWXX left Redhill Aerodrome for Gatwick Airport to enable customs clearance. The following day it departed on a three week ferry flight to Australia.

After 43 stops enroute it arrived at Broome, Western Australia, on 29th June, from where it was flown to Point Sampson. It had covered a distance of 11,164 miles with total flying time of 97 hours 30minutes.

The routing was:
Redhill, Gatwick, Lyon, Nice, Naples, Brindisi, Athens, Rhodes, Nicosia, Beirut, Das Island, Dubai, Karachi, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Calcutta, Akyab, Rangoon, Mergui, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Palembang, Djakarta, Surabaya, Waingapu, Kupang, Broome and Point Sampson.

Why wasn't it 'shipped'?

[CharlieOneSix]

....Why wasn't it 'shipped'?

I wasn't in Bristow then so can only guess that it was required urgently on contract so flown rather than put on a ship. In 1969 I'm not sure what, if any, civilian fixed-wing freighter would be capable of transporting a Wessex?

Bristow did a lot of long distance ferry flights up until the 80's, but this one was the longest.

[Pontius Navigator]

We did a flight to Nairobi, departed Masirah, over Salalah and then coast crawled to Kenya. We were just off the Somalia Coast but well out of any trouble at FL510.

I suspect out Emirates flight to Cape Town followed a similar route.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Harold E THompson

Harold E. "Tommy" Thompson (1921 – October 29, 2003[1]) of Hobart, Indiana, was a helicopter aviation pioneer. He was the first man to intentionally loop a helicopter, set three international helicopter speed records, and was the first man to land a helicopter in the courtyard of The Pentagon. Thompson was a veteran of 3,500 hours in single-engine propeller fixed-wing aircraft and 3000 more in helicopters.

Records set in the S-52-1
Starting in late 1945 Sikorsky engineers developed the Sikorsky S-52 helicopter, its prototype flew first in 1947.

"It was a sharp, responsive dream," Thompson recalls. "After trying some mild acrobatics, I figured it would loop." Until Thompson, no one had dared try to loop a helicopter. As Sikorsky's chief test pilot Jimmy Viner pointed out, "Any of 10 things can go wrong--all fatal, be sure you know what you're doing." Thompson did—erratically at first, then perfectly—10 loops in all, as a 8 mm movie camera recorded the flight at Bridgeport, Connecticut on May 9th, 1949 for history.

That year, he went to the Cleveland air races with the S-52, where he set the first of three international speed records that he was to achieve in the helicopters: 129.616 miles per hour (208.597 km/h) over 3 kilometres (1.9 mi).

Flight instructor
Thompson also taught others how to fly helicopters. His students included Admiral Arthur W. Radford; Pat Handy, first woman to fly solo in a helicopter; and Rodman Wanamaker, Eastern department store tycoon.

Last flight
His career came to an abrupt halt on a spring day in 1950, when he took an admiral aloft at the Navy's Lakehurst, New Jersey, base. Suddenly, a shaft snapped, and the tail rotor came apart.

Thompson skillfully kept the craft from spinning around, the usual result of such an accident. The helicopter landed hard, crushed the landing gear and tilted, while the spinning overhead rotor chewed up the ground and disintegrated. Tommy crawled out with nothing worse than a cut cheek. The admiral was shaken, but game: "All in a day's work, eh, boy?" Thompson however had walked away from more than 20 forced landings and now his fifth helicopter crash. Figuring he had stretched the law of averages too far, he replied, "Maybe for you, sir, but not for me". That night, when he got home he talked to his wife and refrained from flying again in a helicopter until 1979.

[Undried Plum]

Just out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?

It is a good question and only part of it is easily answered, as ian16th implies, and that is there are large sections of both the East and West routes that are inimical to human life (for many reasons), let alone GA.

The answers to the questions also depend on so many different factors, including current politics, bureaucracy and travel documents, through to clearances, aircraft's range, speed, make (lest one needs maintenance), backup (if things go tits up), local agents etc. etc.

I would hire an expert Africa hand with previous experience to be my agent and would probably prefer the East coast route (Italy, Greece, Turkey) and then down via primary targets such as

I would choose Sam Rutherford for the job of Ops Manager and general fixer. He's honest and he's knowlegable and he's well experienced. He was the bloke who blew the whistle on the lying bitchcunt who claimed to have flown from Cape Town to Ingerland solo and who also fraudulently claimed to have flown a Stearman to Australia solo.

He's also banned from the dried plum forum, so that's an accolade too. I don't think he feels a need to apply to join the self-styled "Honourable" company of dressers and mutual wankers who dine in the Guild Hall. He's honest and he's knowledgable and he's forthright. That's why I'd choose him.

Cairo to Jeddah looks doable, but I'd start from a fuel/entry stop at Alex (HEBA), arriving from somewhere in Cyprus like Paphos, and would overnight in Hurghada. Fly past el Qahira at lowest alloweable altitude and take piccies of the pyramids, but don't think of landing at Cairo.

Do not, repeat NOT, attempt to overnight in Saudi. Bad place to linger. A tech stop would be fine, though.

Jiddah to Nairobi is a helluva stretch for a GA pistonbanger, so I'd stop off at Addis Ababa for the night. Never been there meself, but I think it would be a culturally interesting place to visit.

A side-visit to Axum is on my bucket list, but would be impractical in the current state of events in that locality of Ethiopia. It would be great to learn some stuff about what those guys know about original Christianity and to report back here to oor ain puir Rev Meenister o' the Kirk, JimLad.

Nairobi would be great to revisit. Last time I was there was on my honeymoon. It would be great to do a side trip to re-visit Treetops, though not with you, Green Puddock.

Dar el Salaam is somewhere else on my bucket list. That would require some detailing by Sam R or whoever.

I'll look at somewhere thenceforth to land where they respect and understand elephantine drinking habits in snorting and puffing riverine Africa, in due course.

Harawe might be a bit problematic for me.

Last time, I wore a pistol on my hip when flying a 206 on tall skids, which was painted like like a fukkin rasperry ripple, from outlying bits of rural areas of Rhodesia to collecting stations of black-painted cuboid tin poll-boxes.

Prior to that, I had flown, in a rented teenyweeny PA28, (over)filled with a mate and two of his former mates who were "ex" Selous Scouts, to demolish his formerly owned property some dozen(s) or so miles SouthWest of Salisbury, circa 1976. Long story. Never told.

Swing that lamp, and I'll tell ye a story.

[CharlieOneSix]

.........Harawe might be a bit problematic for me.

Last time, I wore a pistol on my hip when flying a 206 on tall skids, which was painted like like a fukkin rasperry ripple, from outlying bits of rural areas of Rhodesia to collecting stations of black-painted cuboid tin poll-boxes.............

So the rasperry ripple one in the centre of my photo, rear row, must be yours UP! Mine was G-AWJW - third from the right, front row. Salisbury Airport, February 1980, before the fun started!
.

[Undried Plum]

That's the one! Lollypop was her nickname.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Nairobi would be great to revisit. Last time I was there was on my honeymoon. It would be great to do a side trip to re-visit Treetops, though not with you, Green Puddock.

A romantic evening elephant viewing from the lodge near Nyeri, with one's own better half, sounds far more appropriate, than one with this (sociable as he is, let it be said) amphibian UP. Besides amphibians are more partial to lakes such as Nakuru or Turkana and interspecies trysts in lodges would only get all the other toads in Happy Valley talking!

If the Goblin did go to Nyeri he would visit Baden Powell's, and his good lady's, grave, as he was a keen scout as a young tadpole.

One additional thing I would bring one such a trip would be charm, good will, brown envelopes and cash for bakseesh, incidentals, call it what you will, en route!

CatainAfrica.JPG (42.65 KiB) Viewed 1624 times

Credited to this great site

[TheGreenGoblin]

Back to pilots, and flights, forgotten or not! I must admit that this one was suggested to me by C16's post about his experiences flying helicopters for films. I knew about this guy before seeing the film, American Made, that sadly, was to claim his life

Alan David Purwin (August 28, 1961 – September 11, 2015) was an American helicopter pilot, aerial film operator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Purwin founded and owned Helinet Aviation. Purwin contributed to the aerial cinematography industry and aided in the filming of hundreds of Hollywood movies such as Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean film series and the Transformers film series.

On September 11, 2015, while working on the film American Made with Aerial Coordinator Fred North and Aerial Director of Photography Goss Dylan, Purwin died in a plane crash in the Andean natural region of Colombia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Purwin

[Undried Plum]

Nairobi would be great to revisit. Last time I was there was on my honeymoon. It would be great to do a side trip to re-visit Treetops, though not with you, Green Puddock.

One additional thing I would bring one such a trip would be charm, good will, brown envelopes and cash for bakseesh, incidentals, call it what you will, en route!
rl=http://theflyingboatforum.forumlaunch.n ... 71aaeaf1bc]Credited to this great site[/url][/i][/size]

A low(ish) flypast of a certain place on the left bank of Boteti-not-on-sea-by-the-way would be fun too. VFR recognition point would be a square-looking punt surrounded by waterlillies and land-whales.

[TheGreenGoblin]

A low(ish) flypast of a certain place on the left bank of Boteti-not-on-sea-by-the-way would be fun too. VFR recognition point would be a square-looking punt surrounded by waterlillies and land-whales.

Surely a stop for a G&T (or two) would be in order there too? The proprietors of said property seemed most amiable when I had the pleasure of meeting them, albeit, briefly some years back now.

[Undried Plum]

Re the picture of Lollipop: I got the job of flying into the long grass areas which were known to be infested with snakes and hostile jigaboos etc. Hence the choice of tall skids. Learning how to land that fukkin thing elegantly outside the office windows at Sahfend, before it was dismantled and packed into a Belslow, was both embarrassing and spine-jolting.

I had a pair of SLR-equipped BSAP guys, one by each rear door, in case the losing side of the expected vote became prematurely ungruntled.

By the time gruntlement was stirred, we'd all facked orf back to Blighty with our toys.

Democracy's a bitch, but it pays well.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Re the picture of Lollipop: I got the job of flying into the long grass areas which were known to be infested with snakes and hostile jigaboos etc. Hence the choice of tall skids. Learning how to land that fukkin thing elegantly outside the office windows at Sahfend, before it was dismantled and packed into a Belslow, was both embarrassing and spine-jolting.

I had a pair of SLR-equipped BSAP guys, one by each rear door, in case the losing side of the expected vote became prematurely ungruntled.

By the time gruntlement was stirred, we'd all facked orf back to Blighty with our toys.

Democracy's a bitch, but it pays well.

I knew a lot of very disgruntled Rhodies, ex RLI guys mostly, plotting and fulminating against perfidious Albion, in Cape Town at that time. The task of bringing "Democracy" to the heathen and the ex-colonists must have been a very thankless one indeed!

One or two of these gentlemen, became so aerated thereafter that they went mad and became involved with South Africa's misadventure in the Seychelles in 81, others joined the SADF and yet more just started to drink heavily in a morose fashion, with a few committing suicide or becoming accountants, or some equally spirit crushing profession, in South Africa. Suicide probably being the more preferable option in the latter example!