FERRY FLIGHT
REDHILL-KUANTAN, MALAYA, SEPT 1970.
The following ferry flight was extracted
from an article by Ken Rowe which can be found at "Anecdotes"
(Kermit's Kids).
Ferry Flight Redhill to Kuantan (Malaya) Sept '70 ( Wessex G-AVNE)
I arrived back at Redhill to be told that there had been a hang up in
visas and the aircraft was not ready and there was still discussion as
to who the pilot would be. There was only one thing for it another quiet
fortnight lounging around in "The Mill House Hotel" (Thank you Alan)
Eventually everything was sorted in true Bristow fashion and I was re-united
with Wessex G-AVNE and introduced to the pilot Bob Balls M.B.E. and we
set course for Gatwick for customs clearance. The aircraft had been fitted
with overload tanks both internal and external and had no amount of "junk"
in the back. In truth it was "slightly" over weight if fully fuelled so
we took off from Gatwick with only half fuel. The idea was to head for
Kuantan Malaya with a "few" stops in between.
Just as we were about to take off from Gatwick the aviation press, "Flight"
and "Helicopter World" who had missed us at Redhill, collared us. Bob
Balls wasn't keen to talk to them and passed me off as the captain as
we were both dressed in "civvies" I was left to do the talking with the
result was that I am credited with flying the journey by the press. We
lifted off for Tousous-le-Noble in France and Bob asked over the intercom
whether I was one of Bristow's flying fitters and I had to admit that
I was not. I had only recently left the Air force and I didn't have any
chance to get any stick time in. Little did I realise what I was about
to encounter.
In reply to my negative reply Bob said if you think that I am going to
fly this bloody thing all the way to Malaya you're wrong. There were no
flight stabilisation systems in Bristow's Wessex at that time and they
took a bit of handling when heavy and at altitude. We landed in France
with an escort of light aircraft who were very inquisitive and you would
have thought that they had never seen a helicopter. We took of from Tousous-le
Noble with a full fuel load and the only way we could get off was to taxi
out to the runway and do a rolling take off (you can't do that on skids,
thank god for wheels). After about an hour of flying, with Bob scribbling
on his kneepad, he announced that we would miss out the stop at Lyons
and go straight to Nice. I asked him how we were going to do that and
he explained that if we flew single engine all the way we would have enough
fuel. We had a dispensation to fly single engine on one of the legs in
Iran from the A.R.B. (yes it wasn't the C.A.A. then) but not elsewhere
but Bob's theory was it was better to try it out over a relatively populated
area than over a mountainous desert area so he shut one engine down instructing
me in the art of relighting it should he be involved with any emergency.
His next communication was "Come on then it's your turn to fly" so I had
my first flying lesson in an overweight Wessex, flying on one engine,
and with no stabilisation system, a very reasonable introduction I thought.
We entered the Rhone valley at the top of the mountains with the intention
of following it down to the sea and on to Nice and just as the mountains
started to loom higher and higher on each side the fog and mist rolled
down on top of us. There was no option but to set the aircraft down on
the side of the mountain. Before doing this, Bob who by now had contact
with Nice, sent a radio message to say we were landing at 3000 ft and
wound the trailing aerial in and set the aircraft down with me hanging
out of one window and him out the other. It was a textbook landing on
sloping ground, amongst the pine trees very nearly requiring a change
of underwear.
The mist lifted and we shot up and away extended the trailing aerial only
to find the HF saying that Nice was about to launch a search for a lost
aircraft. Nice hadn't realised that we were a helicopter and thought we
had crashed at 3000ft. As we arrived towards the bottom of the valley
the mist came down again and obscured everything but by this time Bob
had ADF contact with Nice. He decided to head out towards the sea until
the ADF needle indicated we were not over land and then proceeded to descend
with me hanging out the window to look for the sea and, once seen, we
headed for the beach and as soon as we saw it, landed. It turned out to
be Marseille beach and as soon as the mist cleared we lifted off for Nice
and a well-earned beer in a top class hotel (thanks again Alan) and thought
about the days exploits. As I went to sleep I thought well if that is
the first day what was the rest of the journey going to be like.
Next day we took of for Italy followed by Greece and Turkey and it was
not until we arrived at our departure point in Turkey to leave for Iran
that the trouble started. We had inadvertently landed in a military airfield
whose name I forget when we should have landed at the civilian airfield
running parallel in the next valley 2 miles away. This caused such a commotion
as they were just about to start an air show for a visiting general and
we were immediately suspected as being spies and were summoned to the
control tower. At the control tower Bob managed to half talk his way out
of it and the authorities said that they would refuel us if Istanbul gave
permission but due to the communications problems in Turkey it would take
until next day to get it. So we were driven to a hotel, had our passports
removed, and we were virtually put under house arrest until next day so
there was nothing else to do but spend some more of Alan's money sampling
the local brew. We were picked up by the police next morning and driven
to the airport refuelled and departed for Tehran. After an overnight stop
in Tehran and a few more stops in Iran we headed for Pakistan doing the
longest leg of the trip.
Our destination was a place in Pakistan called Pasni which is the most
isolated place in the world being in the middle of the largest salt flats
in the world and by the time we landed Bob leapt out of the aircraft jumping
for joy shouting that he was the first person in the world to keep a Wessex
in the air for almost FOUR HOURS, a feat not beaten until this day. All
I can say is the fuel gauge was not indicating when he shut down. We would
have celebrated with a beer but Pakistan being strictly Muslim there was
no chance. That night we made Karachi and as Pakistan, at that time, had
limited entry to foreigners we had to stay in designated hotels and could
only spend "Tourist Rupees" which you could not change back when you left.
The upside was that the Hotel sold beer as there were only foreigners
staying in the hotel so once again we had to spend some of "Alan's" money.
It was all pretty mundane across northern India until we went to start
up at Luknow when the No1 engine started but would not lift off. Hmmmm!!!!
It was obviously a computer failure and we didn't have a spare so the
old Ken Rowe logic cut in. I wound the ground idle up as high as I dare
and bypassed the lift off sequence of the computer, something that Rolls
Royce says is impossible to do but they weren't stuck in the middle of
India with a sick engine, anyway it continued to work all the way through
Burma, Thailand, through Malaya to Kuantan where upon arrival the computer
was changed.
The total time travelling was 14 days with a flight time of about 75 hrs.
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