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[diffwhine]

Yup...
Standard feature - helps with cornering at high altitude apparently. Also makes the descent faster as well I gather, but somewhat uncontrolled.

I'm hoping somebody will tell us that its a loading feature...

[Peter Holden]

I can remember doing my mountain leadership certificate in North Wales in 1975, we had a visit from the RAF resucue helicopter.  In those days it was a whirlwind, very small compared with a wessex.  It was painted bright yellow all over and was known as the kerosene canary, but the ting i remember most about it was the exhaust, it seemed to be the size of a dustbin (the old metal variety)

Peter

[Craig T]

Yes, The Canadair in the picture is a swing tail aircraft so oversize loads could be put straight inside without having to go in the side door and turning the corner. Not sure how they dealt with control cables, hydraulics, electrics etc. Maybe everything had to run on the hinge side and there was flexible links in it all to allow the tail to swing open. Still, if I was the pilot of that I think "check the tail is closed and locked" would appear on my checklist more than once!

They had an American UH-1 helicopter on board it seems or the Huey as they became known in Vietnam where they were used extensively.

Some of the early Whirlwind helicopters had a 9 cylinder radial piston engine in them. I think it sat in the nose at an angle and drove a driveshaft between the two pilots seats up to the rotor head. The later ones had a single turbine in the same place and yes, enormous jet pipe sticking out the side.

Craig.

[oilstain]

Looking at the pictures of the various Santa’s made me wonder, I was told that British Santa’s had the shorter coats and red trousers but American Santa’s had long red coats and no visible trousers but these pictures of Santa’s on a British base seem to be British and American 

I was told this when we used to employ Santa's where I worked and we had a number every Christmas from a actors agency of resting actors, the last ones had been police men in "Life on Mars"

It was always strange the public view of these, one year we had a actor almost 7' tall and mont people complaned that the real one was shorter

[Ferret1958uk]

I can remember doing my mountain leadership certificate in North Wales in 1975, we had a visit from the RAF resucue helicopter.  In those days it was a whirlwind, very small compared with a wessex.  It was painted bright yellow all over and was known as the kerosene canary, but the ting i remember most about it was the exhaust, it seemed to be the size of a dustbin (the old metal variety)

Oddly enough the Wessex was known to me as the Parrafin Pigeon!

[MineRover]

Thank you for posting these photos they are really interesting