Oh Lordy Lordy.

We used to get them fly over quite a lot Terry, made the bungalow shake.

Not seen/heard any for a while now though.
 
We have had them now and then, one when over up at the farm when I was getting eggs and milk a few days ago, a splendid sight.
 
Used in N. Ireland during the troubles, along with whatever other machines were in use for dropping patrols or ground observation.
They tended to keep low (obviously), you could hear them a mile off but suddenly from nowhere they flew overhead and onwards. Same with the smaller ones that dropped patrols in bandit country.
There was a smaller type that was used for ground observation. High in the sky over west Belfast, they seemed like a fixture. Nailed to the sky and emitting a constant background engine noise, they seemed to be permanently there.
At night you could be driving along and suddenly your car and a large circle of intense light would illuminate you and your surroundings. It was like the scene in close encounters of the 3rd kind. You were being checked out from above.

Davy
 
They are elderly and expensive to run.
And a lot of their work can be done by more modern machinery and drones.
Bit like flying steam locomotives
Great to watch. Cumbersome and outdated.
 
In the time of one of the desert storm wars I lived in Basingstoke, near to RAF Odiham where the chinooks were based. One day a whole squadron of them came over, low and the ground shook and I 'had to breathe in time to the thumping'. No, not really but you know what I mean. One day I was cycling home from work and I decided to take a public footpath that ran close to, and above the base. I stood mesmerised while I watched a Chinook do horseshoes. Like a child on a swing. It would fly vertically upwards, i.e. with the blades one vertically above the other, stall, fall back down, do a U at the bottom and then fly backwards upwards vertically. Doing wateveryoucallits like the Pirate Ship ride at a fairground. I watched and watched and it kept on and on doing it till eventually I got bored and left. I imagine the cleaners had a long job in the cockpit after it landed.
I remember in 1970something when one of them was carrying a number of cabinet ministers over to Ireland when it crashed into a hill. As everyone was dead it was easy to blame it on pilot error. But the magazine Computer Weekly took up the case and eventually it was proved to have been a computer fault - or programming fault.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:34)

Back
Top