This week’s video – I just had to share this wonderful British Pathe newsreel of Search and Rescue in the year I was born. What a jolly jape it was in those days to put females to some practical use by using them as rescue fodder. Lucky the poor girl wasn’t brained by the large metal shuttlecock! At least the pilot was smartly attired and didn’t have the distraction of extraneous equipment like a helmet.
On 4th Jan 1978 I flew my first operational flight in the Wessex HAS1. I really loved that aircraft but the explosive technique of starting it with a shotgun cartridge often had a dramatic effect. (See Rescue Pilot page 73).
January was traditionally a quiet time for rescues in Southern England, there were no tourists around and so our work came mainly from injured fishermen or major storms. I’ve posted the coastguard reports from a couple of January call-outs in the website section The Rescues.
In The Aircraft section I’ve also posted details of one of the airframes that still survives today, in this case the Wessex HU5 XS481 which lives at the South Yorkshire aircraft museum in Doncaster, UK. View Link Here
In coming weeks I’ll share the location of all the other Wessex airframes that I’ve managed to track down. I’m looking forward to visiting some of them during our visit to the UK for the UK launch of the book in mid March. My particular favourite is the “Holicopter” which has been turned into campsite accommodation at Ditchling in Sussex. View Link Here
I was amazed to discover this week that the book is available in Estonia! See Buy Page
Finally, well done to the guys who pulled 25 people off this car-carrier in The Solent last week. View Link Here