In October 2002 Robbie Taylor saw Keith Hyde's letter on this site and generously sent us some photographs taken during his service at RAF Kuching, also in 1965/66. These included two showing Belvederes (above). The one on the left is not identified, the one on the right appears to be XG476. Robbie was in the Supply, Control and Accounting Flight of the Supply Squadron in Kuching. He tells us that he was involved in the supply of Belvedere spares for 66 Squadron and was often able to fly with them on supply missions to forward areas.

With the agreement of both we put Keith and Robbie in touch, by e-mail, and hope they enjoyed exchanging their Borneo memories.

A rather different memory was recalled for us by Derek Palmer, until recently one of the "Wednesday Gang" at The Museum, who restored the Kamov Ka-26, DDR-SPY, and have recently restored the nose section of Belvedere XG462.

In 1962 he was serving with the Army Air Corps in Aden at 653 Light Aircraft Squadron's "Falaise" airfield, Little Aden. At that time the squadron was equipped with Auster 9s which were used to support the Federal Regular Army. His Auster had suffered a series of oil pressure problems which were eventually solved by shipping the fuselage away in a Beverley for an engine change at the R.A.F.'s M.U. at Khormaksar. When the Auster arrived back Derek was about to do an air test but was told that it had been involved in a collision with a taxiing Hunter and had been returned to the Maintenance Unit. Derek continues:-

"By the end of the Auster's second repair one of the early Belvederes from the RAF's No.26 Squadron had arrived in Aden on 'hot and high' trials and this provoked some bright spark to suggest that the Auster's fuselage be taken back to Falaise slung on the hook beneath the Belvedere. Not only would this enable its return but also provide a useful hot weather task for the Belvedere. Up to that time there had been no helicopters serving in Aden, so the distinct noise of one, flying close by, drew almost all of 653 squadron personnel out to the airfield to watch the proceedings".

"The pilot made one approach to familiarise himself with the ‘field’. On the second approach the Belvedere hovered in front of the audience before starting to descend. I do recall some wag in the crowd saying, 'What’s the betting they drop it?'. When the Auster fuselage was still approximately ten feet above the runway, descent stopped and, to the consternation of all, it was released. Its tailplane flapped dramatically down ending with the tips almost touching the ground. The undercarriage was squeezed rapidly upwards for it had never been designed to take such a short landing, not even from trainee Army Air Corps pilots! And one can only imagine the shock loading to the new engine!"

"I believe an Air Loadmaster had positioned himself at the window halfway down the pencil shaped Belvedere where he gave instructions to the pilot as to position, descent, load touch down and hook release. The story goes, and I cannot vouch for its veracity, that at around ten feet the Air Loadmaster had coughed. The pilot thought he heard ‘Drop’, went into the hover and released the hook!"

In September 2008 we received an email from John Cowley, in South Africa, with some very interesting additions to Derek Palmer's memories.