Photography

This monster was hovering in our garden yesterday, initially I thought it was a Chinook as it was flying circuits looking to land but it's slightly smaller with only a single set of rotors so it must be an EH101 Merlin...
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My missus was not impressed by the enormous compound eyes on this 80mm long predator and wouldn't let me keep it as a pet. :geek:
 
it must be an EH101 Merlin...
Interesting (in a very nerdy way!), The EH101was never supposed to exist as such. It was designed under the auspices of a company called European Helicopter Industries (EHI, a joint venture between Westlands and Agusta) and was originally called EHI01 but when a defence minister stood up at a conference to formally announce the project, he misread the notes and said 'EH101' - the designation stuck (the alternative being confirmation that said minister was a knob head). I was on the MOD project team at the time and at the event that it happened. I'll get my anorak.
 
Interesting (in a very nerdy way!), The EH101was never supposed to exist as such. It was designed under the auspices of a company called European Helicopter Industries (EHI, a joint venture between Westlands and Agusta) and was originally called EHI01 but when a defence minister stood up at a conference to formally announce the project, he misread the notes and said 'EH101' - the designation stuck (the alternative being confirmation that said minister was a knob head). I was on the MOD project team at the time and at the event that it happened. I'll get my anorak.
That always pops into my head when I see random posts mentioning the Merlin!!
 
Interesting (in a very nerdy way!), The EH101was never supposed to exist as such. It was designed under the auspices of a company called European Helicopter Industries (EHI, a joint venture between Westlands and Agusta) and was originally called EHI01 but when a defence minister stood up at a conference to formally announce the project, he misread the notes and said 'EH101' - the designation stuck (the alternative being confirmation that said minister was a knob head). I was on the MOD project team at the time and at the event that it happened. I'll get my anorak.

We did contract work for EH101.

We had to do batch on batch fatigue testing of the forged rotor hubs looking for variance in the fatigue performance of each. Was a fair few number of years back now!
 
Lived in Yeovil for just over a year after living in Sherborne for the previous 14 years and I can tell you that you could hear them testing the helicopter blades down at Westlands a lot clearer in Yeovil.
A lad we had working for us in our takeaway at weekends worked as an apprentice at Boscombe and says they managed to tow a Merlin off the edge of one of the concrete aprons there and glad he was only an underling as they tried all day to lift the sunken wheel back onto concrete without destroying the aircraft.
He also said if you walked along the top of the fuselage walkway then it sounded like you were walking on full crisp packets.
We were at Yeovil in 2012 and at the time they were also assembling the Apache from the US and these then went up to Boscombe to have the Gatling guns fitted according to our young man on the inside.
 
Just to show my age, my post was reflecting on experience from the early - mid 1980s!
C'mon, that's not that long ago... is it? Seems like only yesterday in my mind.
 
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