Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
#1519735
My late father used to recount a story about the early use of helicopters for checking electricity poles and cables in the more remote parts of North Yorkshire where he was the engineer.

The Electricity Board had contracted a helicopter company, among whose pilots was a gentleman of oriental appearance. On following one meandering supply line up a remote valley the pilot wanted to check that he had reached the correct farm, so set down in a field next to the farm and knocked on the farm house door to check his location.

The farmer opens the door.
Pilot, “Excuse me Sir, could you tell me where I am?”
Farmer “Aye Lad, you’re in England now.”
mick w, velostar, XX and 1 others liked this
By ChrisRowland
#1519751
I landed my glider in a field near Milton Keynes, wandered off to the farm house, knocked on the door, explained what had happened and asked where I was - hoping to find what obscure village to direct the retrieve crew to.

"You'm in Buckinghamshire dear".

I thanked her and went off to find a sign post and a phone.

The advent of GPS and mobile phones has helped enormously, you can call home and organise the retrieve without getting out of the glider now.

There was a phase when people had mobiles but not GPS. I heard a conversation like this:
Pilot: "I've landed out!"
Crew: "Where are you?"
Pilot: "In a field"
Crew: "Hang up, go and find out where you are, then call us and let us know".
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By kanga
#1519884
matthew_w100 wrote:Seriously - how can a military helo get into the situation that so much nav gear has failed that a lorry driver can provide a useful assist?


er, any reason to suppose that a Kazakh AF Mi-8 has much more than a Soviet-era standard VHF box and maybe ADF * ? And it looks to be in a snowstorm, and quite a lot of Kazakhstan is fairly featureless ..

[*RAF and AAC helos obviously have sophisticated bacon butty homing devices to find MP3, like the Chinook and Apache yesterday :) ]