Sea King

While on holiday we happened to be passing though Bideford on the day of the Water Festival (a rather apt name, given that it had been raining non-stop for the past week).

Anyway, at the festival was a Helicopter and RNLI display, showing a casualty being winched both from the water and to and from the inshore lifeboat.

Without any planning I managed to get a couple of decent frames of the helicopter.

Click to enlarge.

Also, a version scaled for WUXGA 1920x1200 monitor wallpapers sea-king-wuxga-1920-1200-wallpaper.jpg

This particular aircraft is marked as ZH545 - which probably makes it a Westland Sea King HAR3A. It would make sense if it had flown from Royal Marines Base Chivenor, where the RAF still maintains two Sea King Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft as the 'A' flight of 22 Squadron.

The one thing that I find odd/remarkable is the lack of 22 squadron markings, visible in most other pictures of SAR Sea King helicopters that I've been able to find.

(Regarding the specifics of the aircraft, it could be rescue 169 or 170, although I'm not sure how I'd tell the difference)

So, other than the pretty picture, why am I posting this?

Well, at the height of the blizzards February 1978, just a little while before I was born, my mum was airlifted by a 22 squadron helicopter to hospital (where I was born a short while afterwards).

Now, I don't know if it was a Westland Wessex (or maybe even a Westland Whirlwind), as the Sea King Helicopters only entered service in 1977, but there are only two SAR aircraft operated by 22 squadron out of Chivenor, so I don't think I'll get much closer than this.

[Edit] With the help of 'Rick B' who left a fine comment, it would seem that it was a 72 Squadron Wessex HC2 from Odiham. (I wonder how I'd find out which one it was exactly? - I'd imagine that there'd be records somewhere)

Anyhow, in a round-about kinda way this reminds me that I had once been closer and had been taken on a visit to Chivenor when I was quite little where I had this picture taken:

Click to enlarge.

You can see that I was really happy about the whole thing - my only real memory of the day is that I really didn't want to be there. This sort of thing is wasted on the young.