by Alan Bristow
CHAPTER 25
Coda
In 2007 I arranged to visit Helitech, the biennial helicopter exhibition at Duxford Airfield in Cambridgeshire at which the international helicopter industry meets to look at new technology and to talk business. I was in two minds whether to go; there was nobody of my generation left in the business. I was in my eighty-fifth year, I’d been out of the industry for more than twenty years, and I was in a wheelchair, recovering from an operation.
For the first half hour I went about the exhibition looking at some of the extraordinary technology on offer and reflecting on how much easier my life might have been had it been available in my Hiller in Antarctica sixty years before. Outside the AgustaWestland chalet stood the EH101, the helicopter that had promised so much ...
I suddenly became aware that I was being stared at. ‘It’s Alan Bristow,’ said a low voice. People stopped their conversations and looked towards me. There was nobody I recognised. I smiled and passed on, but the whispers followed me. ‘It’s Alan Bristow . . .’ Soon I was surrounded by a small crowd who seemed intent on treating me as an object of veneration, some sort of holy relic. I got the surprising impression they had a high regard for me – surprising because in the past, when we were in competition, I’d knocked some of their companies into a cocked hat.
I came to a particularly large chalet with my name above the door – ‘Bristow Group’. I was wheeled up the ramp and into an opulent room. ‘My god, there’s a familiar face! It’s Alan Bristow,’ someone said. Hands reached down to be shaken; I was treated like visiting royalty. As it happened, the President of the Bristow Group, Mr William Chiles, and his executive team were in the nearby Sikorsky chalet signing an order for new S92s; word of my arrival was sent over, and they came rushing back from the signing ceremony. Bill Chiles ordered a chair drawn up next to my wheelchair so we could have our photograph taken.
‘Come and have lunch,’ he said.
Bristow Helicopters had gone through several incarnations since the mid-1980s; it had been sold to a Swedish group called Gamelstaden in 1990. That was followed by a management buyout backed by the Cayzers that left a couple of investment banks owning most of the equity. An American company, Offshore Logistics Inc, had bought a forty-nine per cent share in 1996, but by that time Bristows was down to about 150 helicopters worldwide and times were tough. Offshore Logistics had done a good job of restoring the company’s fortunes, and in 2007 it was in an extremely sound financial position.
The curious thing was that Offshore Logistics Inc had changed its name to the Bristow Group. Why, I asked Bill Chiles, had they done that?
‘Well,’ said Mr Chiles, ‘we found that a lot of the companies we were trying to get business with had never heard of Offshore Logistics. We had an in-house referendum on the name, and the overwhelming decision of the employees all around the world was that the name of Bristow was solid gold in the oil industry and anywhere else helicopter services were needed – and that included all the American employees. We market-tested it and found that Bristow was associated with the highest standards of safety, excellence and business integrity. So Offshore Logistics became the Bristow Group.’
I enjoyed the lunch, enjoyed the show, and left satisfied that fifty years on, the Bristow name was in good hands. We pioneered an industry, created a lot of wealth and wrote our own page in aviation history, and it’s for others to carry that work on. And it’s gratifying to know that it will be carried on under the acclaimed name of Bristow.
My family shortly before the outbreak of war: father Sidney, mother Betty at left, sister Muriel aged about seven, and my maternal grandmother Helen Falconer.
My mother ordained that I swim every day rain or shine, a practice I maintained into old age.
An important part of a Deck Officer Cadet's duties on the Matiana was to keep the passengers happy; I can't recall who these two were.
'C' Class, 55th Pilots' Course, HMS St Vincent, 9 August 1943 - Bristow far right, middle row.
My course at No 13 Elementary Flying Training School, St Eugene - I'm second row back, fourth from left.
The cold in Canada was a shocking experience for a young fellow who'd been brought up in Bermuda!
Tiddly Jacks' at Kingston, Ontario - Cliff Penfold, myself and Harry Little.
Alan Bristow, newly-minted Fleet Air Arm pilot, ready for action on Seafires - but not helicopters.
Approaching HMS Anson in a Sikorsky R4 to become the first helicopter pilot to land on a battleship at sea.
I made a number of trial landings in a Sikorsky R4 on the frigate HMS Helmsdale when in charge of the Portland Flight.
Landings on HMS Helmsdale followed the establishment of a modified hand signalling system for helicopters.
The WS51 Dragonfly, built under licence from Sikorsky, was Westland's first helicopter.
Westland's first test pilot at the controls of one of the first Dragonflies off the Yeovil production line.
At Westland in July 1947; I'm sitting in the Dragonfly with Jean in front of me. Harald Penrose is the short chap behind the dinghy, Pete Garner is two to his right and 'Jeep' Cable on his left.
I demonstrated the Dragonfly all over Europe in front of large crowds, most of whom had never seen a helicopter.
Demonstrating the capabilities of the Westland Dragonfly by lifting an iron girder.
Myself with Les Swain, the engineer who accompanied my on the Wolf Rock relief and on many record flights.
Pictures of the relief of the Wolf Rock lighthouse made front page news around the world in February 1948.
The Daily Express's unfortunately-registered Dragonfly; I was delegated to break the news to Lord Beaverbrook.
Inspector George Brunson with his Webley .38 in a photograph 'stunted up' by the Daily Express.
On the roof of the Metropole car park in London at the start of the record-breaking flight to Paris.
I faced arrest after flying through the arches of the Eiffel Tower with Jacqueline Auriol but got off because she was the President's daughter-in-law.
My WS51 waits at Le Bourget for Bill Waterton's Gloster Meteor - we carried a letter between the Mayors of London and Paris in 46 minutes.
Stunts like the letter-carrying exploit in 1947 made headlines for the helicopter and garnered much publicity for Westland.
Our first holiday together - with Jean on a short break in France in 1947.
Instructing for Helicop-Air at what is now known as Pontoise airfield; the student's name I have forgotten.
Lifting a volunteer from a moving truck in the Hiller 360A was a regular Helicop-Air stunt.
Crop-spraying for Helicop-Air in Algeria, where I almost met my end after being overcome by DDT fumes.
A crowd would gather within minutes whenever one of Helicop-Air's crop-sprayers landed in Algeria in the 1940s.
With Vietnamese ruler Prince Bao Dai in Saigon - he flew, but he didn't buy.
About to airlift four wounded Legionnaires from the Indochina jungle; the expression on my face says 'How the hell do I get out of here?'
Myself, Louis Santini and Valerie Andre; I taught them both to fly on the Hiller 360 at Cormeille en Vexin.
Valerie Andre flew 365 rescue missions in combat, won the Legion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre and became France's first woman General.
Captain William Reichert of the Olympic Challenger with the Hiller 360 en route to the Antarctic.
On the Olympic Challenger the Hiller 360 had to be serviced and pre-flighted outdoors in all weathers.
A tabular iceberg similar to the one on which I landed in foul weather; some could be a mile long.
The whale catchers - converted destroyers - followed the Olympic Challenger through the pack ice after I had scouted a passable route.
Every day I washed the Hiller in fresh water to keep corrosion from salt to a minimum.
My 'mechanic' Joe Soloy a quick student who went on the build the billion-dollar Soloy Corp.
Whaling w
as relentless and exhausting work for flensers, but the money was some consolation.
The cruelty I witnessed in whale hunting led me to expend much time and money on devising a more humane killer.
An original drawing of the airborne humane killer for whales, as envisaged by Alan Green.
Aboard Melsom & Melsom's Norhval in 1952 - Bristow in omnipresent hat. Jack Woolley is at right.
Christian Salvesen's Southern Harvester had a hangar big enough to shelter two Whirlwinds between the funnels.
Myself, in shorts, supervising the servicing of the Whirlwinds aboard Southern Harvester.
Approaching Southern Harvester in a Whirlwind; the ship could not afford to stop just to recover a helicopter.
Our first base in the Persian Gulf, at Doha in 1955; Shell's pipe store had to be moved to make space for us.
Jack Woolley brought a Dakota full of spares to Doha to help us set up our first operation there.
I flew Sheikh Shakbut around his oil concessions in Abu Dhabi; an odd chap, he was said to hide his money in milk churns in his palace.
Approaching Das Island in a piston-engined Whirlwind; men went stir-crazy in such isolated posts.
WS55 Whirlwinds on Das Island in 1957 - the enormous fixed floats limited them to around 65 knots.
A BP publicity shot with a Bristow Widgeon in the Persian Gulf in 1958.
With Douglas Bader at a formal dinner; Douglas was not one to mix business with pleasure.
George Fry, the decorated former Lancaster pilot who ran BHL in my absence and was a wonderful foil to me.
A Whirlwind on seismic survey in Gach Saran, Iran; a pitiless desert, but crowds would materialise when a helicopter landed.
With Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi (centre) and interpreter; Zayed deposed his brother Shakbut and brought the country into the modern world.
With little room for manoeuvre, a Bristow Wessex 60 lifts a generator onto the roof of a hotel in Sloane Street, Chelsea.
We coaxed the Bell 47s up to almost 14,000 feet in the Andes, an experience we barely survived and would never repeat.
Prospecting for Shell in Bolivia in 1957 with a Bristow Helicopters Bell 47, a very comforting sidearm and a bandolier of ammunition.
A Bristow Widgeon delivering an air conditioning unit onto the roof of the Shell Centre in Waterloo during construction in 1961.
The Yellow Peril at Redhill; bought for the Shell contract in Bolivia, it flew with Bristow for almost 40 years.
We started servicing the exploration rig Mr Cap 145 miles offshore with a single-engined Whirlwind III in 1965.
A Riley Dove we bought as a corporate runabout in 1965; Alan Green is second left at the handover, and that's me with the pipe.
The Managing Director at a Bristow fancy dress party in 1968; the staff partied hard, but only after the flying was over.
The Wessex 60, here operating from North Denes, became the mainstay of the North Sea fleet in the late 1960s.
A corporate PR shot from when I took over BUA; the airline was in deep trouble and faced a kill-or-cure survival battle.
As BUA chief executive I commuted to Gatwick in the Yellow Peril and took a great interest in the turnout of our stewardesses.
My duties at BUA included greeting famous passengers - here, the aviatrix Jean Batten steps off a VC10 from Tenerife in December 1969.
Alastair Gordon, my strong right arm for almost three decades, rose to become Operations Director of BHL.
The Bristow HS125 jet was bought partly to expedite delivery of vital spares to Nigeria, where consignments otherwise faced long delays.
Business meetings were often held aboard the Bristow HS125 corporate jet, which had a bed aboard for long-distance flights.
Home safe - BHL Bell 212s back at Redhill after being clandestinely extracted from Iran in Operation Sandstorm.
Author James Clavell aboard my yacht Twirlybird; Jimmy's book Whirlwind was about Bristow's Iran evacuation.
Captain Bob Balls (left, with engineer Ken Rowe) saved 45 lives when the drilling rig Ocean Prince sank in 1968.
BHL pioneered air-sea rescue services, developing in scope and sophistication from an early operation with a Whirlwind at RAF Manston in Kent.
Rescue capability was always foremost in my mind - the Piper Alpha explosion came after I resigned from BHL.
The Bristow team at Boeing Vertol in Philadelphia - yours truly with Chinook model, and from left, Bill Mayhew, Bryan Collins, Andrew Muriel.
I crawled all over the Chinook, flew it and evaluated all the figures before making the decision not to add it to the fleet.
British Airways Helicopters lost its first Chinook in 1984, happily without a fatality; a later accident cost 43 lives.
Signing an order for new helicopters was always an occasion which warranted publicity photographs.
My entire executive team at BHL in the early 1980s - George Fry on my right, Jack Woolley on my left.
The Bristow Tiger, designed to BHL specifications, was one of the best purchases I made and gave us a great competitive advantage.
The Tigers are still working the North Sea for BHL more than 20 years after I purchased the first 35.
Inspecting an S61 with my British four-in-hand team-mate Prince Philip as he opened Bristow's new facility in Aberdeen.
Test flying the Sikorsky S76 - at left is company test pilot Nick Lappos, whom I thought an exceptional helicopter pilot.
Four-in-hand carriage driving became my passion and I became good enough to represent Great Britain.
In retirement at Meadowfield, the house in Cranleigh I lived in for almost fifty years.
Index
Aberconway, Lord 337
Aberdeen 261–262, 272, 287, 289, 292, 294
Dyce airport 302, 306, 307
pilots’ strike 301–310
Abu Dhabi 162, 163–164, 219
Admiralty disciplinary panel 100
Aereo Boliviano 178
Aérospatiale 294–298, 340, 347, 348 see also Sud Aviation
330J Puma 292, 293–294
Alouette 316–317, 322
AS350
A-star 278, 280, 347–348
Dauphin 331
Puma 232, 283, 292, 293–294
Super Puma 293, 294, 295, 296–298, 330 see also Bristow Tiger
Agip 330, 331
Agnelli, Giovanni 348
Agusta 340, 342, 347
Agusta-Bell 206
JetRanger 252
AgustaWestland 357
Air Accidents Investigation Branch 300
Air Holdings Ltd 198–200, 201, 202, 206, 207, 213, 215, 220, 230, 233, 235, 236, 252–253, 254, 272–273
Air Registration Board 92, 144, 146, 223, 270, 284–285 see also Civil Aviation Authority Air Transport Licensing Board 251
Air Whaling Ltd 13, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146–147, 148, 151, 152, 154, 158, 160, 162, 163, 194, 195, 259, 338
Airfast 329
Airspeed Oxford 77, 85, 86
Airspur 343
Airwork 135, 199, 200, 206, 215 see also Fison Airwork
Aitken, Max 367
Alaska 273–274
Albion, HMS 227
Albury, Lieutenant 68
Aldington, Lord 337, 342
Aldous, Pat 276
Alex, Ralph 123
Alexandria 86
Algeria 107
Algiers 50
Allison 252, 331
Allison, Grant 278–279
Alness 20, 72
Alvis 97, 99–100
American oil men 260, 261–263
Amoco 165, 172, 266, 273, 328
Amoseas (American Overseas Petroleum) 186–188, 214, 330
Andersen, Lars ‘Fanden’ 9, 14, 125, 126, 127, 130
Anderson, Sir Donald 213, 220, 236, 239, 327
Andes mountains 173–174, 179, 180–182
André, Gen Valerié 115, 116, 117, 120
Andrews, Eric 65, 66–67, 68–69
Anson, HMS 70, 73, 82<
br />
Antarctica 9–10, 11, 63, 127–132, 133, 134, 138, 139–140, 141, 145, 148–151, 155, 175, 229, 267, 369
APEX union 308
Argus, HMS 50, 51
Arkell, Basil 68
Arnold, Doug 306–307
Aruba 149, 150
Atlantic Computers 333–334