Dangerous To Pilots

[Blackmac]

CAP: My memory for registration's has gone by the wayside. All I can say is Autair bought 2ea 204B's for the Polar Shelf contract in the sixties.

 

One was lost with a very experienced French pilot and a great guy on it's way to Thule Greenland, never replaced.

 

There was always an argument on who had the first 204 in Canada, Bow Valley or Autair.

 

I believe the registration's of Autairs were AHA & AHB.

 

Don May the last I heard was in North Bay, that's quite a few years back. He had left Autair prior to it's demise to work at Heli Voyageur.

 

Mel's old partner in Calgary was also an ex Autair as Herb Tom, Roger Ranger, Gary Brown, another P/E who worked out of Terrace Bay for Kimberely Clark, and the list goes on.

 

Cheers, Don

[cap]

blackmac ------I believe you'll find AHB was the 1st, but she had that Gnome engine, if you remember. The tail-pipe came out of the rear/side of the cowling. It was a British engine if I remember right. Why that engine was in there escapes me. AHA was the 2nd after that crash. RSR was jammed right in there about the same time, so I think that's where the confusion comes from. RSR could well be #2 and AHA #3, but AHB was definitely the 1st, but few realized she even existed because of her short life. 'Til my dying day I'll always associate RBR (the 1st 206) with someone you probabnly knew also......Smitty Pruner. He used to fly her for years for CJOR and autorotated that "mother' down into a Canada Wide parking lot on Bay and Bloor in Toronto....without a scratch and an almost full parking lot yet. RBR is still chugging around somewhere with that G4 type panel in her. The conversation he had with Jimmy DiCecco at Dominion when he reported the event is priceless........you'd bust a gut laughing.

[DGP]

I think I have heard this story....from Ray Gilsdorf....

[cap]

DGp ------ PM'd you..........mine was told to me by John BenBen and Jimmyy DiCecco when I was with Dominion. Years later, when I worked with Smitty, all he said was "I didn't have much choice of landing spots". One month later we were in Schefferville on a job, I went to knock on his door to go to supper and no answer........he'd passed away in his sleep.

[Blackmac]

Cap: RSR was the original 204 with the RR (204A), the ones Autair were both B models with -11 engines.

 

RBR (206) was the only ever owned by Viking (I think) , anyhow I don't know if you remember the 206 throwing blades because of bad pins.

I came back one day from flying RBR and proceeded to take the blades of to check the pins, one blade came of O.K. and I took the blade pin and broke it with my bare hands, the other one we had to take a sledge hammer to the pin to get it out, needless to say we scrapped the blade grip.

 

Another time I was tracking a 500C and was bending the trim tabs and the blade came apart, I proceeded to take three blades apart with my fingers and thumbs.

 

Cheers, Don.

 

PS: The first time I met Ernie Grant was 1956 in Knob Lake, when I was in the Navy. We winterized a couple of 47G2's for him.

[cap]

Blackmac

 

 

Right you are!....onset "alzeimers " on my part I guess. The first 205 was RSR and I first met her in Oct '68.

 

I only saw a picture of AHB that Jack Pearson and Freddy Wayte showed me because she was gone real quick. I distinctly remember a picture being shown to me by Jack and Freddy, it was in Autair colors and had the tail-pipe coming out the side. I knew Augusta or someone else had made such a beast and had seen one in person years before on a US Army base. I remember commenting that it sure left a cleaner tailboom and Freddy or Jack said that it was Autair's. It was in their same colors also....now that's a mystery what a/c it was then.

 

 

I don't know who owned RBR when Smitty was flying her, but it was definitely working for the radio station. I flew her also, but that was for Pegasus......not Dom-Peg, but Pegasus out of Oakville.

 

Oh you bet I remember the pins. I was flying out of Sept-Iles and was about 7-8 miles behind the a/c that threw the blade when it happened. All I saw was the a/c make a steep dive to the right and then a large black cloud of smoke. She went in about 3 degrees steeper than a bal-bearing too. I knew he'd "bought it", made a radio call to that affect and arrived there momentarily, but all I could do was stand and watch. I arrived at Oreway, dropped my passengers and there wasn't any further work that day for Maintenance of Way, so I called it a day. Two days later, I'm told that all 206's are grounded worldwide to check the serial numbers on the pins and that I have special approval from MOT and Bell to get my *** back to Sept-Iles to check the pins, but to go directly and no screwing around. I did so and was hanging around the hangar afterwards doing whatever and one of the engineers helping to do the change threw one down to me in one piece to look at.......I fumbled the toss, it dropped on the concrete and split-in-two right there (still remember the engineers name too....Wilf Seniuk). I was drunk that night from about 8PM until....well I don't remember........somone carried me to my room and tucked me in.

As I remember, it was all to do with a certain batch of serial numbers wasn't it?.......it wasn't all of them as I remember, right?. I remember the bad ones were made under contract for Bell by some farm implement company in the American mid-west somewheres.

 

You pre-date me by a bunch. Other than school, in '56 I spent most of my time "slushing-out" floats at my granddad's charter operation. Don't know if you've had the pleasure of that experience, but it always reminded me of having my head in a bottle of Javex for a whole day......... sure cleaned out the nostrils.....and I wasn't ASKED to do it....I was TOLD. Second to that wonderful experience was putting "dope" on fabric wings......only that was a legal "high".