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..........Bristow Base: Dominican Republic.

In 1960, Sir Miles Wyatt asked Alan Bristow if he would like to take over the
running of Fison Airwork and effectively merge it with Bristow Helicopters so
although many of these operations were not strictly Bristow operations they
were under Bristows control for a time and many staff joined the company.
Therefore the general feeling is that Fison Airwork should be included as part
of Bristow history.
Fison Airwork itself was formed from Airwork and Fison Pest Control and had
many contracts in the field of crop spraying of which the Dominican Republic
was one.

Occupying the eastern part of the island
of Haiti, the Dominican Republic has an
area of about 19,000 square miles. It lies
within the tropics but the heat is tempered
by sea breezes, its northern shore being washed by the Atlantic
Ocean and its southern by the Carribean Sea. At the time of the
Fison-Airworks contracts agriculture was the most important
industry with most crops needing some form of pest control.


Dated at July 1962, what looks like a
rotors running refuel and insecticide
upload.



Same date.
"Spraying bananas using a Hiller 12C."




.......and thanks to John Odlin for the following pictures. John is
the pilot in the Hiller and at twenty something learnt a lot about
flying helicopters on the crop dusting circuit. He is now 65 and
living in Surrey.