The 5th Emergency Service . . .
Friday 29th April was a rather different day for some of the HAAF. We were having a visit from members of the Royal Air Squadron (RAS).
The RAS is an organisation characterised by its members, activities, ambassadorial roles, adventure, professionalism, charitable work with young people, support for the armed services and support for a wide range of aviation activity. An important day for us st the HAAF. Our visitors were also treated to a tour of the Army Flying Museum.
Most of the members arrived in their own aircraft, which made an impressive line-up in front of the Army Flying Museum.
A busy day of flying then began as we tried to give a Historic Flight to as many as possible. The dispersal was busy as a Scout and Chipmunk (borrowed, as ours are just completing maintenance) and our Sioux began flying.
Then the engineers started to earn their money (only joking – we are all volunteers!). The Scout returned after a few minutes and landed away from our dispersal, no turbine oil pressure indication. After an inspection of the aircraft, no loss of oil and all other indications, temperatures and pressures were normal, we decided a pressure transmitter was at fault. Luckily we had one available and 45 minutes later we had a serviceable Scout.
The rest of the day passed in a flurry of swapping passengers and refuelling aircraft. Our group of visitors then began their departures from Wallop – all except two that is. A rather beautiful helicopter refused to start, so HAAF to the rescue, we dashed out across the airfield with a trolliac and jump started the mighty beast. Another aircraft had an oil issue so we towed that one into our hangar and it’s waiting for an engineer to visit next week.
Meanwhile, work continued as our own band of engineers continued the winter maintenance on our aircraft. We are getting close now, to be continued . . .
Photo credit: Daniel Frampton