Can anyone give me a quick answer?
Was this restored by Trent Helicopters at Luton and flew from there during the late 1980’s-early 1990’s? If not, what was, and not the Bell 47J?
I can recall seeing a Wigeon/Dragonfly in the Trent blister hangar being restored and it eventually flew. It was duck egg green/white and was definately Golf Alpha Papa …. ….(I think, or was it Golf Alpha Lima… …)?
There was also a Bell 47 (enclosed boom) which was also from this era that flew.
This has been bugging me for ages as I remember this airframe over the ‘heli square’ and it was unusual and unique.
By: STAN05 - 11th February 2015 at 21:40
Southend aviation museum sales brochure 1983:
By: J Boyle - 11th June 2008 at 23:56
G-ANLW was flown in spurious miltary colours for the WW2 (!) drama ‘Eye Of The Needle’ .
Not only did it appear in an RAF scheme, earlier in the film it sported USAAF markings and was near the dummy B-17 Nazi spy Donald Sutherland finds.
Also you’ll note a real B-25, P-47 and P-51 in the scene.
It was obviously cheaper for producers to fill out the scene with real aircraft rather than make more dummy aircraft.
(as an aside…Anyone know where that scene was filmed and whose aircraft they were?)
By: Propstrike - 11th June 2008 at 23:04
G-ANLW was flown in spurious miltary colours for the WW2 (!) drama ‘Eye Of The Needle’ .
By: WJ244 - 11th June 2008 at 22:00
I think there was a Dragonfly around at that time as well but from memory it was restored by Helicopter Hire at Southend for an overseas airforce museum – possibly Argentina. I suppose it is possible that Trent did some work on it or is my memory playing tricks and it was a Widgeon that Helicopter Hire resurrected.
We had one of their Widgeons in the museum at Southend for a while but off the top of my head I can’t remember which one. I have got to scan my Southend newsletters for a forum member and should turn up more details then.
By: Arabella-Cox - 11th June 2008 at 20:36
Duck egg blue with a few coloured stripes sounds a bit like the Westlands house colours of the sixties, from memory.
The Bell 47J was probably the ex-BEA one, G-APTH, which was at one time in the mid 70s owned by Autair at Luton. I seem to recall that in some sort of pale brown?
By: Buster The Bear - 10th June 2008 at 23:22
Widgeon
G-ANLW restored by Sloane Helicopters. They bought or inherited Trent?
Duck egg blue was the remnants of an ex military camouflage?
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June 10, 2008 at 11:04 pm