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They were a good outfit actually, AA - the owner was David Dollar, hence the name. Just look how professional their Chief Engineer looks on the Rhodesia contract - one Roy Neep:


Okay - he dressed like that for a joke.......

One day we had to go to Camp Charlie near the Mozambique border – the Army (30 UK soldiers) brief was that they had agreed with the guerilla leader that we would arrive at 2000ft at 1100 precisely and do a lazy circular descent, nothing aggressive, as the 1100 guerrillas were still heavily armed. Th...

I told this story in ‘the other place’ under a different and no longer existing pseudonym many years ago – the posts have long gone – so apologies for the repeat if anyone saw it there. There are also a couple of related photos on another thread here on Pproone so I won’t repost them here. In Januar...

Ferranti were awarded a contract to provide a Bolkow 105 to KLM Helikopters flying from Amsterdam Schipol to the rigs in the North Sea and this lasted for several years. This scan of a postcard shows a Sikorsky S58T, Bolkow 105 and a Sikorsky 61N at their base at Schipol East. KLM-postcard.jpg At on...

I'll leave you with this though... Not mine but a good example of the hardest part of the crewman's job is at the very end... Nice bit of video - where would military pilots be without the crewmen - or even civvy SAR pilots! I can't remember a poor one during my time in the RN and one of them who w...

Yes I agree AA - I know there are four of my mates lurking here - hico-p, Wessex, spinwing and FD2 - where are your stories and photos? By the end of ’73 I had fallen out with my bosses so resigned and moved to Cosgrove near Northampton where I became the personal pilot to Charles Mackenzie-Hill who...

Probes - the one thing that is as good as a diary is are Flying Logbooks. Dates, places, people and flights are all recorded so it is a tremendous aide-memoire. I forgot to add this photo to the SWEB ones. It was not all line patrol – this task provided some light relief, flying bags of quick drying...

4th May 1971 - based with G-ASLR at Halfpenny Green (Bobbington) Airport west of Birmingham. Topped up with 42 gal of 100/130 and took off for a day's line patrol near the Welsh Border. We were flying in hilly country at about 50ft inspecting an 11kv line that ran down the side of the village of Hop...

I have to say we got up to a lot of mischief when we were based away from Bristol and most of the stories I dare not relate even more than 40 years later - for example it's suffice to say that dropping ex-Royal Marine parachutists from a 47 did not come in our official remit. The very tame jolly in ...

Our other Bell 47J2 was G-ASLR - this is a very early photo taken before my time at the Unit - it must be around 1964 and I think it was taken on the Hog's Back near Guildford. I have no idea of the circumstances. It was then painted in the SWEB colours of two tone green - hardly suitably for low fl...

Even before I had finished my CPL groundschool course I was offered a job with the South Western Electricity Board Helicopter Unit at Bristol Lulsgate. It was basically an ex-Fleet Air Arm flying club and I was to spend five happy years there. In July 1968 they paid for my conversion course to the B...

So, back to the plot......we came back to Culdrose and then I only had 3 months to go before my time in the RN was up so I was sent to 706 Squadron as a Staff Instructor converting Mk1 pilots to the Mk3. XS121 came back as well but sadly on 16 Feb 1972 she joined all the Whirlwinds and other Wessex ...

C16: Was that really the Navy's "hit the town" outfit back then? White shirt, flying suit to impress the lady boys and a pair of white clown shoes... Showing my age but in the words of Dick Emery ....Oohh, you are awful...but I like you! I knew I was asking for comments when I posted that...

C16 Did you ever fly with a Nuclear weapon like shown above ? The only weapons I ever flew with were Mk30 and Mk44 torpedos. In the Far East performance was so limited you couldn't screen ahead of the task force and carry a torpedo. You had to call in another Wessex (or a Wasp) to drop the torpedo....

Following the disbanding of 815 in October 1966 I think prooner hico-p joined 820 but 'Wessex' and myself were allocated to 700(H) Squadron which was the newly formed Intensive Flying Trials Unit for the Wessex HAS Mk3. With an uprated Napier Gazelle engine it had no more endurance than the Mk1 but ...

Thanks AA - not all my photos by any stretch of the imagination. We'll be into the colour era shortly and most of those will be ones I took...

The Wessex Mk1 was an underpowered beast - in the Far East A/S sorties rarely exceeded 1hr 15 mins. Basically the anti-submarine screening task involved 'jumping' ahead of the task force ie transit at 125ft/90kts to a 'dip' position then establish a hover and lower the sonar set into the water to lo...

The Whirlwind 7 was superceded in the anti-submarine role by the Wessex HAS Mk1. In 1965 I, together with three lurking members of pproone - hico-p, Wessex and spinwing - joined 815 Squadron on HMS Ark Royal flying that type. As well as our normal A/S role we provided night planeguard cover for the ...

Thanks probes - for my part I'll try and post some more photos and associated comments in roughly date order from the 60's to late 90's. Hopefully some others will join in with their photos......

Obvious really... You keep dunking the kite into the oggin until it blows up... There's almost more truth to that than you know - although the Wright Cyclone in the HAR3 wasn't too bad, the Alvis Leonides Major in the anti-submarine role Whirlwind HAS7 was appalling. It was said that by the end of ...