Scottish Elises

Just being nosy, 3 chinooks just flew over my office (near the city centre) of Glasgow, flying low. An unusual sight around here!.. (usually it's the police helicopter).

Are you sure they were Chinooks? Three sea kings flew over Glasgow earlier, on their farewell flypast tour.

ruadh08 wrote:Are you sure they were Chinooks? Three sea kings flew over Glasgow earlier, on their farewell flypast tour.

Doh! That was it! Seakings it was!!! (amateur plane spotting faction)

Yep, see bbc news site

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35303937

Been in a few of these no doubt. I was a member of Lomond MRT for about 5 years in the very late 80's/early 90s when I lived in that area. Initially when we called out a helicopter to either help with a search or to get us up a mountain quickly it was a bright yellow Wessex from the RAF that came out. I remember the first time ever being in one of them. No room at all internally, controls and internals seemed very dated even then and the vibration when it powered up was incredible! Was sure the whole things was going to shake itself to pieces. Then the switch was made over to HMS Gannet and the RN Sea Kings came into play instead. Big benefit in that more than a handful of us could be transported around the hills at once and also not all stumbling over the stretcher/casualty if on board! At that time they were all dark blue in colour - don't know when they changed to the red/grey.
Not quite a Vulcan final tour, but the Sea Kings have saved and served many. Makes me feel old but time moves on...

Watched all three come back to PIK & land this afternoon (visiting an office with a window onto the airport side).

Maximum respect to those guys and all the Resue teams that worked with them.

They scooped me off a hill when I stupidly injured myself. The Bristows crews have very big shoes and even bigger underwear to fill, balls of steel.

Not always.

I wore neither underwear nor shoes. Used to get bollocked for flying bare footed and putting my feet up on the dashboard, but this was in the days when we flew in shirt sleeves and no goon suits. No common sense, I could swim better bare footed than with boots and socks on. Smoking was allowed throughout the aircraft as well which really peed me off on a four hour flight.

tut

Saw them out the living room window this afternoon when they were over the Pentlands.

1st thought was that there was someone seriously injured on the hills with 3 of them.

George

tenkfeet wrote:The Bristows crews have very big shoes and even bigger underwear to fill, balls of steel.

Many of the RAF & RN crew have already moved to Bristows as part of the contract. So same guys but with better equipment!

Better Picture.

Dark wrote:

tenkfeet wrote:The Bristows crews have very big shoes and even bigger underwear to fill, balls of steel.

Many of the RAF & RN crew have already moved to Bristows as part of the contract. So same guys but with better equipment!

Never knew that. Makes sense.

Tremendous pics

They really could not have got a better, more relevant day of weather

Stunning photos

Dark wrote:

tenkfeet wrote:The Bristows crews have very big shoes and even bigger underwear to fill, balls of steel.

Many of the RAF & RN crew have already moved to Bristows as part of the contract. So same guys but with better equipment!

I've heard some grumbling that the new choppers (fnar) being used, whilst more powerful, flexible and modern, suffer from a much greater downwash than the Seaking - which will make the winchman's life a lot harder. Not sure of the validity of that - was just one dude's opinion. Seaking reportedly had a really controlled downwash for something the size of a bungalow.

Any thoughts from the more qualified chopperists on here?