LoggyDriver

Just watched that video of the incident and it's worse than I imagined. When he took off I was in Little Monctons at our set up and watched him go round the site. I'm sorry to say it but this Pilot does need a severe kick up the backside for this. This sort of thing does no good whatsoever to our hobby. If he crashed that would have been the end of civil helicopters coming into shows to display them. When it was mentioned that he lost power I was thinking maybe just a little, but on the video the engine virtually cut out and all you could here was the blades. The height he was at and the distance he travelled was unbelievable. I'm not getting into the blame game, but the Pilot must share 90% of the blame for this, he is the one responsible for the machine. BUT, he must have been told where to land as the site is massive, so he knew where he was going when he landed. I can't see that he just turned up at the show and knew exactly where to land, either he did a pre show reccy or was told to land there on arrival. When I saw it in the static display I thought it must have been trailered into position. To take off in a very crowded area with lots of FOD around was insane. He should have been trailored out to the heli area where he could take off safely. Were there fire marshals on standby with fire fighting equipment? Near misses MUST be reported to the CAA by law. Who in authority has made the complaint or has it just been left up to the spectators? I'm sure those involved haven't heard the last of this!!!!

Most probably spelt wrong mate. It is a conical container with holes in so that you can chuck your spag into and the water drains out, a strainer parhaps?

I'd hardly say Cosrec "doesn't know what his talking about", he owns a recovery company and does this for a living. If he says it was a balls up then it most probably was.

There was an incident where some guys were handbrake turning a SIDECAR outfit. They raced down Monctons Meadow and turned the outfit over. One of the guys suffered an open fracture to his arm and had to be rushed to hospital. Even after this incident, there were still kids driving quad bikes that were only 7 or 8 years of age. The Policing of the laws is a joke really. Another grip is the "no vehicle movement" between 10am and 18.00hrs. The dust these guys were throwing up was a nightmare.

My other half said she was not impressed by his pilot skills at the Bill Target Steam Rally. He seemed to struggle taking off and I put this down to the fact that it's a piston engined helipopter.

There were some real muppets letting off RED distress parachute flares and "normal" back to earth flares. BUT, instead of firing them straight up they were letting them off sometimes at about 45 degrees which meant the flares were still burning when they hit the ground. I'm surprised no ones tent went up.

Here are the pictures of the finished artical. I still need to paint and fix an ATU box to the N/S wing though.

Here are some pictures of our set up and a few others.

Who the hell was running that recovery operation? All those people standing right next to the recovery, blokes virtually standing over the wire rope, snapped wire or strop that nearly takes the heads off the people that are standing in the Stolly directly in the line of sight for the snapped rope... Unbelievable. The R.E.M.E. should use that video to show what NOT to do in recovery operations.

I bought 4 new ammo boxes, 1x large ally box, 2 bench seats, 2 tables, ATU wing box, 2 x Mk6 antenna mounts and a side antenna arm, 1x large chefs knife, suive, and large spoon with holes in.

Hi all. Just got back from W&P 20010. Arrived Friday 16th at 0900hrs and got back this morning about 00.30hrs. What a brilliant week. The weather couldn't have been better, very hot and sunny most of the time. The old Beltring weather has returned. Met up with Lee, Mark, Vince, Mike, Scott, Snapper and a few others. A very big thank you to Lee for he knows what. Mark is a diamond geezer and had a chat with his lovely better half (sorry for thinking you were Australian) The dust was an absolute nightmare and we saw the water tanker just once down by us. Bought some more kit including Army tables and bench seats for the 12x12. Pictures to follow as the clean up is about to begin.

I have seen this Helicopter at a few shows this year. I've been told he keeps it at RAF Weston-On-The-Green. So who gave permission for him to land where he did? I thought it was amazing that he would be allowed to land where he did. There is hardly any room where he landed. A petrol engined chopper (indeed any helicopter) should be landed in an open field and then fitted with those skid mounted wheels to move it into position. I saw it take off but was unaware of the problem until reading this. The Police also need to investigate the owner of the Hop Farm as the land owner, as he must be the one who gave permission for it to be landed where it did in the first place???

Did the Foden Wrecker have an underslung lift and NO crane? If it was without it's crane then this might be the wrecker the Atomic Weapons Establishment use.

These new breed of trucks might look nice and pretty, but I can see the maintenance costs hitting the roof when they get older. There are just too many computers and electrics involved. I've had considerable experience driving MAN 26.440 tractor units and the engines are good and pull well. I've not driven the "new breed" of Army trucks as I'm old school Army, but I can tell you this, they wont last as long as the Bedfords and to a certain extent the L/Daf.

I bought Michelin XCL's for my Land Rover in 2001 that were studded from Canada. They were like new but god knows how long they had been around. I had to change them this year as the tyres started cracking up. They still had 50% tread so it was a bummer, but 9 years on the vehicle isn't bad for £200 quid!!!:-D

That is just disgusting. What animals have made that mess. Do people really live like this in the 21st century, unbelievable.:argh::banghead:

Hope the weather is better down there than it has been here. VERY heavy rain this afternoon, it's brightened up a bit now though but it was terrible earlier.

My god, what's happened to the metal that's supposed to surround the element?:shocked:

http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz273/afvmilspec/P1020257.jpg My god, what's happened to the metal that's supposed to surround the element?:shocked:

Cool. I actually gave a mate a ring about your "service". He is NUTS about weapons and is a massive collector. He has a Firearms licence and goes shooting somewhere. He said he might bring some interesting stuff down, so when he turns up we will have to come and find you.

Finally finished the Landy. Did the last bit of painting yesterday (just in time looking out of the window) It's now all painted up Desert Sand, with coalition markings, TAC numbers, Squadron Markings etc. It could do with a service, but I might do that on return from W&P. I will take pictures of it at W&P and put up on here.

By the way, what are the toilet facilities like this year? Have the portaloos turned up yet or is it a trek down to the block?

It's a very wet day here in Oxfordshire. Bloomin typical. Dry as a bone for weeks then when it's time for W&P the wet weather moves in!! I hope it will dry out by the time we get down on Friday? It better stay dry when I need to take the 12x12 down, don't want to have to put that up again to dry it out:embarrassed: I've just got off the phone to a mate who is going down on Sunday. He told me that a guy he knows who has been in the same spot for years and who marked his area out turned up to find that the marshals had put someone else in his spot. Apparently people are turning up and being told where to set up. I don't know if their is any truth in this.. I need space for 1 Bedford, 2 Reo's, 3 Land Rovers, (possible) Austin K9, Bedford MW plus 2 or 3 12x12's, 2 9x9's, admin area etc. Don't know whether I will get all that. Is the other field open this year that they opened last year? Looks like the owners of the Hop farm will need to purchase more Land, or rent out a few extra fields for the duration of W&P if it gets any bigger? Any more pictures of the site to put on today? How busy is it? Information, we need information.

They are the same LED's that they fit to the Police, Fire and Ambulance units so they are pretty bright. They are bloody expensive but you get a 5 year warranty and they are supposed to be good for 100,000hrs operation. They are also very small compaired to rotating beacons. I've got a rotating beacon that I accuired form the Army, but I need a fixing point as it's a DIN type unit. I tried it out today and it works a treat, but I like the look of that LED beacon. You could leave that on for hours without the engine running and not run your battery out. Here is another video of what I'm looking at. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp83_9yZZ6M&feature=player_embedded

Safariswing, PM SENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:cool2: