This weeks guest speaker was Keith Thomas who is an experienced helicopter pilot. He was talking about his experiences as a Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter pilot back in the 70’s. Helicopters were not a sophisticated as those of today and initially he was flying the Westland Whirlwind HAR10, a single engined helicopter. He was very happy although it did have a particularly short winch cable which could make winching alongside larger drops tricky if the winch cable was shorter than the drop. Fortunately they had a extension strop they could add to the winch cable to enable winching in those conditions. After the Whirlwind Keith moved onto the Wessex which with 2 engines was much more capable, better lifting ability, longer range, higher speed and thus safer. In was in this aircraft ironically that he had his only accident, having cause to ditch into Hong Kong Harbour, the whole crew surviving unharmed. The cause of the accident was the the navigator who was also doubled as the winch operator. To do this he had to clamber from the cabin to the cockpit or vice versa and managed to knock the fuel supply switches to ‘off’ whilst manoeuvring into position. Kieth maintained that the bravest person in the helicopter was the winch man who dangled from the helicopter on the end of a piece of wire known colloquially as the ‘dope on a rope’. Seriously though historically it has been the winch man who has most often lost his life in rescue operations when the cable either snags or snaps and I suspect they are amongst the highest decorated aircrew in peacetime operations.

Keith’s talk was a fascinating look at SAR operations from a personal perspective and we look forward to welcoming him back in the future