The Forestry History Page

INDEX

Here is Stan's Tale from 1997

And here is an anonymous tale.

I would like to have a page per year. Can you contribute any stories or pictures? Let me know in which year they belong.

British Executive Air Services Ltd

BEAS First Logo

In the Beginning

BEAS Helicopters started the Forestry spreading trials in 1969 using an Alouette II helicopter. G-AWFY. The whole idea was to keep the Alouettes utilized over the winter when they were not filming.
Bill Carter the Chief engineer bought two Sling King Hoppers from Transland in the states. The first time we tried them out was on Fred Barker's farm near Marlborough. It was mid winter (Dec '69) and Les Corbert and I gingerly drove up to the downs there on extremely icy roads. The trial went without a hitch but that was only a couple of runs. Unfortunately when asked to work for a living the trouble started. They were originally designed for grass seed spreading in Texas and fell to bits within a couple of days when asked to spread 'Unground Rock Phosphate' in Scottish weather conditions. However the first engineer to go out with them 'Nuncky' Brogden was not the sort to let a mere piece of machinery defeat him and managed to keep them going. This involved shutting down at each refuel and cleaning the carburetors and filters. Then greasing all the bearings and carrying out any repairs needed after a mere hours work.
We originally worked for Stewartry Farm Chemicals, based in Castle Douglas. Who had a contract with Economic Forestry.
I took over a couple of months after the start and was soon having to rebuild the hoppers each night back in the Castle Douglas workshop. We would get up and have breakfast before the hotel staff was up then drive out to the work site so as to be ready to start at dawn. Then worked until dusk. The production rate was awful, generally the abort rate was 50% and we had to stop often to do running repairs. In the evening we'd drive back, have a shower and a meal and then I would work on the hoppers sometimes until two in the morning to then get up at six.
It eventually became obvious to the management that a better hopper was required.

BEAS Last Logo

Enter the Smallwood.

Smallwood was a design agency in south London somewhere. They came that winter and looked at the hopper and then went away for a month before coming back with a brilliant design. It lay on its side with a spinner at one end and the engine on the lid at the other. To fill it one stopped the engine, disconnected the drive shaft, opened the lid, with engine, tilting over on to its back. Then reversed this procedure after filling and tried to restart the engine. We explained that this procedure would take a bit longer than the two minutes turn around we usually took.
They went away again and a month later came back with what was to be the Smallwood Hopper. On it's first trial in Scotland all the fertilizer fell out of the bottom when it was loaded. I had to send John Warner (The then company accountant) off to Glasgow to find a spring maker and have stronger springs made. And it kind of went downhill from there.

Then in 1977 Dollar Helicopters took over.

Continued on next page

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