FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1950
1950 - 0480.PDF
318 FLIGHT from its entertaining style, this account constitutes a tribute to the helicopter's aptitude for unusual jobs in out- of-the-way ptjfja. It has been prepared kfC. Colin Cooper from letterf written from Afrita by the crew concerned. ". . . the pygmies became accustomed to the helicopter," Village in the Kibali-lturi Forest HELICOPTER OVER AFRICA Sixteen Hundred Miles Across the Dark Continent With a Light Rotating-*/ing Aircraft : A Film Unit's Experiences 1AST summer, a company called Africa Films, Ltd.,wished to make a colour sound-film of wild animals•^ and native life encountered on a three-week safari in Kenya Colony. It was thought that it would be imprac- ticable to move the delicate cameras and sound-recording apparatus through the rough jungle country by any other means than by air. Even if the equipment were para- chuted to the location, it would be impossible to move it around from place to place in order to be sure of having it in suitable positions for recording the movements of the wild animals. It was suggested that a helicopter might be used, first as a spotter for locating the game and best camera-locations, secondly as the conveyor of the equipment to the locations, and thirdly for use on occasions as an actual camera plat- form for taking air-to-ground pictures. Arrangements were soon made. A " fixed-wing " pilot, Mr. " Bark " Vineyard, was trained on a Hiller 360 helicopter, and in due course he and the dismantled helicopter left for Africa. They arrived at Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, on the West Coast, and there the machine was assembled under Vine- yard's supervision. After test flying, and various prepara- tions for the 1,600-mile flight across Africa to Nairobi, Kenya, the machine was ready to depart on August 28th. From now on the story can best be told by direct quota- tions from letters received from Bark Vineyard and from Mr. R. Butcher, the representative of Africa Films, Ltd., who was to be his passenger for most of the trip. "On August 28th," writes Vineyard in the first letter, "Butcher and I loaded up to fly to Stanleyville (1,000 miles). We had three cans of gas tied on the sides of the machine, and luggage and a few spares tied on top of that, and baggage piled high in the cockpit until we looked like an expedition to the moon. I had figured to make the trip in four days, but it turned out that I did not get there until September 14th—eighteen days." Butcher himself gives a vivid account of the first half of the journey. We started out from Leopoldville (he writes) loaded like a pack-horse, with a change of clothes, jungle packs, four cans of meal, two thermo-bottles of water, and 21 gallons of spare fuel. We took off at 7.30 a.m. and headed for Stanleyville, a distance of 1,000 miles up the Congo river. We started by following the river out of Leopoldville for approximately 20 miles, until we came to the foothills that lead to the high plateaus between Leopold- ville and Banningville, which was our first stop for fuel (170 air miles). It did not take us long to realize what an undertaking we had set ourselves, because it gives one an odd feeling to be flying in an open helicopter and looking down into canyons that are a mile deep, with only the trees of the jungle to set down on in case of engine failure. [As will be seen from the illustrations, this was the standard open-type Hiller, which would obviously be most suitable for photographic work ; the alternative version has full transparent enclosure for the three-place bench-type seat.—ED.] However, after an hour's flight we found ourselves over the grassy plateaus, flying at an elevation of 300ft above the ground. I had heard before leaving Leopoldville that a herd of about sixty elephants had ,been seen recently near our course, and so naturally I was looking for them. Soon we saw a herd of about twenty buffalo near a water hole, and this became a common sight from now on, with occasional antelope between the buffalo herds. All went well, and we had just spotted the fork of the Kasai and Kwango rivers (where Banningville is located) when, at an elevation of 300ft, the engine went dead and we started dropping earthwards at a rate of around 1,000 ft/min. I could see the elephant grass below getting nearer and nearer when, at about 50ft from the ground, Bark flared the ship to break our descent and we made the finest dead-engine landing in elephant grass (which was ten feet high) that a helicopter ever made. We both looked at each other and laughed, and, with the same thought in mind, loosened our straps, crawled out and looked at the landing gear. After inspection we found no damage, so we poured in. some of our surplus gas and started the engine. All seemed O.K., and we took off. As we rose above the elephant grass I saw six or eight buffalo that had been standing within sixty yards of us watching the procedure. We flew over them as they stam- peded towards the Kasai river. In six minutes we were
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
