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Bern-Belp Sikorsky S-58/Wessex in 1976

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fatherfaff
Posts: 337
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2018 12:33 pm
Location: Leeds area

Bern-Belp Sikorsky S-58/Wessex in 1976

Post by fatherfaff » Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:43 pm

Bit of a long-shot this!

I was at Bern-Belp airfield on 28/8/76. Heliswiss were operating Sikorsky S-55 (Whirlwind) HB-XDS and Sikorsky S-58 (Wessex) HB-XDT. The latter was formerly French AF 58-328. Both were civilian schemes.

However there was another S-58 sitting on the airfield in military colours that I didn't manage to identify. I've noted it as "non-flying" so it may not have been airworthy, and "ex-SAR". Later I have added "ex German" but not sure if that was definitely ex-Luftwaffe or if it had a green and dayglo colour scheme that looked ex-Luftwaffe or something like that!

Any ideas from anyone??

Thanks again.

DickFlute
Posts: 143
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:47 pm

Re: Bern-Belp Sikorsky S-58/Wessex in 1976

Post by DickFlute » Thu Mar 31, 2022 11:25 am

Hi Fatherfaff

Not sure if this will help at all, but a report in BAR 11/79 states that former Marineflieger H-34G 81+04 was noted outside the Heliswiss hangar at Bern-Belp in July 1979. I don't know when it first arrived at that location, but I understand that the H-34Gs were retired from Marineflieger service on 1st April 1975. For info it was still stored there in August 1982 - or at least the pic at the URL below would indicate as much...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24101413@N03/3452193915/

Best wishes

fatherfaff
Posts: 337
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2018 12:33 pm
Location: Leeds area

Re: Bern-Belp Sikorsky S-58/Wessex in 1976

Post by fatherfaff » Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:28 pm

Thanks Dick. That is probably the one - I have found reference to several ex-German H-34Gs going to Bern in the early 70s and found a photo of two of them outside, in plain green with no SAR markings, and marked up with large white lettering "CH1101" and "CH1108" apparently to be converted to S-58Ts (like HB-XDT). The conversions never happened and the article had no info on what happened to the airframes. The airframe in your pic definitely is in SAR type colours with SAR on the side so this is probably the one I saw unless there were any others that Heliswiss bought in this colour scheme!

By the way what is "BAR 11/79" and can anyone get access to it?

DickFlute
Posts: 143
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:47 pm

Re: Bern-Belp Sikorsky S-58/Wessex in 1976

Post by DickFlute » Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:19 am

Hi again
By the way what is "BAR 11/79" and can anyone get access to it?
Sorry I should have mentioned that "BAR" is British Aviation Review which was published monthly by British Aviation Research Group (BARG). There's some info on the group/magazine here...
http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/mags/magazi ... gazine.htm

Until recently their entire output was available on a series of four DVDs, but I believe they've all been sold & the website set up for the specfic purpose of selling said DVDs has now been removed.

For what it's worth the report I alluded to covered no more than three lines of text & in full reads as follows...

"BERN-BELP
P2-05 U-107 and U-111; P2-06 U-139; Alouette II V-47; Alouette III V-215
(c/n 1371) and V-257. Noted outside the Heliswiss hangar on 23.7 was ex German
H-34G 81+04 (c/n 58-1671)."

Best wishes

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