Agreed. Great day for all involved with the event. It went extremely well. PA474 out with 36 hours to spare before the event. As OC BBMF said, there was no plan B. My plan B was not to turn up and move to Argentina if the Lanc wasn’t out in time.

Have a good time in Rotterdam this weekend.

Col

Ah yes, PA474’s visit to Holland was a hit! And not a single member of the “roundel police” in sight at Rotterdam Airport…
“Michael H” ‘s photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64649127@N00/sets/72157600149536547/ gives an impression of todays events at Rotterdam Airport. Even though local media hasn’t mentioned the fact that the “Lanc” is still in The Netherlands I expect a large audience will be watching her starting up her engines this Sunday afternoon.
Handing out/dropping over the seven-feet-fence numerous copies of this season’s booklet was also much appreciated by all the Dutch folk!

Thanks BBMF!

Found at http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=e47f7e92-9b4e-4b5e-9021-adc23cc9ea02 :

“Mars water bombers to stay at Port Alberni

Sandra McCulloch
CanWest News Service

Saturday, April 14, 2007

The Martin Mars water bombers are staying in Port Alberni, thanks to a
decision by TimberWest to accept a bid by the Coulson Group of
Companies, a major heli-logging firm.

“It’s good news, really good news for Port Alberni,” said Port Alberni
mayor Ken McRae on Friday.

“[CEO Wayne Coulson] is a local person, born in the community, and
employs 400 to 500 workers in our area already, a good corporate
citizen. They couldn’t have gone to a better organization.”

The terms of the deal are confidential, said TimberWest spokesman Steve
Lorimer, but added that the aircraft will continue to be based at Sproat
Lake near Port Alberni.

That’s great news for the 22 mechanics and engineers who maintain the
aircraft through Flying Tankers. Manager Terry Dixon said Friday the
workers are relieved. “The main thing is the planes will stay for awhile
and Coulson intends to operate them. [The planes] are too young for
museums.”

TimberWest announced in November 2006 that the two huge water bombers were for sale. The news saddened many on Vancouver Island. The amphibious [sic] aircraft won admirers over 46 years fighting forest
fires in the area.

The bombers were originally operated by a consortium of five forest
companies, but all dropped out except TimberWest. Reasons for the sale
were economic. It costs TimberWest $1 million a year to maintain the
aircraft and a lack of forest fires in recent years kept them mainly
idle.”

Hello Tom and others,

It isn’t an article but a “reader’s letter” which appeared this Thursday…
The following was taken from the Air Britain mailing list:

“An interesting letter in today’s Daily Mail from Squadron Leader F J
Cubberley of the Shackleton Trust suggests that the CAA have agreed in
principle that Shackleton WL790 will be given a Permit to Fly in the UK IF wing spar refurbishment (costing around £3million) has been carried out, and the Trust is looking for funds to carry this out – perhaps the Vulcan to the Sky team could advise them. It has taken the Trust 16 years to get to this agreement.”

But like Tom I am also very interested in a scanned variant of the original!

Is anyone able to scan the article? I’d be interested to see it.

Thanks,

Tom.

I always thought that the Bristows Whirlwinds were bought from new, obviously not!

Well, this time Bristow apparently wanted “second-hand”. They even converted her from Piston-driven to Turbine-powered! Info (translation by myself) below taken from
http://www.flugzeugforum.de/forum/showthread.php?t=32748&page=5 .

She was born with a radial engine R-1300, Bristow later fitted her out with a Gnome turbine. She got the new designation “Westland Whirlwind SRS 3”.
The helicopter flew for Bristow till the mid-eighties, and then went to Weston-Super-Mare/IHM.
From 1994 until the closure of the Aeropark Diepensee Aeropark at Berlin-Brandenburg she was located south of Berlin-Schonefeld Airport, apparently exchanged with the IHM for another (Russian-built?) helicopter.
VDM Publishers (publish the German magazine Jet & Prop) then had her on their premises until this June.

“S/N WA 71/F8-219
Baujahr Anfang 1955 mit Sternmotor Wright R-1300
HAR.3……registriert als XG576, im Einsatz bis 1967.

“Bristow Helicopter” übernahm ihn dann und rüstete den Hubschrauber auf Turbine um (RR Gnome H1000 baugleich mit GE T 58).

Neue Bezeichnung Westland Whirlwind SRS 3, neu registriert als G-AYNP. Bristow flog den Hubschrauber bis Mitte der 80er-Jahre, danach stand er im International Helicopter Museum in Western-Super-Mare England.

Von 1994 – 2000 stand er im Berlin-Brandenburg Aeropark, bis Juni 2006 dann in Zweibrücken beim Verlag VDM und nun endgültig in der Sammler- und Hobbywelt. Oliver hat den Heli wieder so lackiert, wie er bei der Royal Navy geflogen ist (blau/orange).”