UK Out of Sequence/Personalised Registrations

[Helipixman]

I've been comparing notes with Sav on UK out of sequence/personalised registrations based on a database I compiled many years ago. Listed below are the first fifty issued on the UK register.






Please feel free to make any contributions with photographs or comments.

Here are photographs of the first five... many more to follow:











Helipixman

[Helipixman]

Yes I'm not sure what the Seaking connection is ? Over to Dennis for that one ?

[Savoia]

You know how Denissimo was telling us about the signwriter at Skyline who made a spelling error .. well .. I think the Maestro must have recruited the same chap to work on G-SHVV (above), because on the rear door he's written 'Seaking' when it is clear for all to see that this is a JetRanger!

[Helipixman]

Not all of the registrations in the G-SH** sequence were used.
G-SHEE and G-SHHH were used later on fixed wing aircraft.
G-SHII, G-SHMM, G-SHTT and G-SHYY have still not been used.
That leaves G-SHOO which was used on a Hughes TH-55A (0518) Cancelled by the CAA, another one going to New Zealand for spares use. I have never seen a photograph of this ? Maybe Dennis has one ?

[Savoia]

'So who is the owner ?'

Ha ha .. I don't think there is any question about the owner .. I mean the company name is right on the door!

I knew Stefano had 'an' Enstrom in the past, I didn't know he had multiple Enstroms .. but then nothing surprises me about Stefano .. he is a something of a rotary phenomenon!

[Helipixman]

G-SHWW Enstrom F28C (348) Re-registered as G-MHCA by Starline then sold to Norman & Carmen Bailey at Manchester Helicopter Centre

G-SHXX Enstrom 280C Shark (1173) Sold in Ireland becoming EI-CCS.


G-SHZZ Bell 206B JetRanger III (2584) Sold to Corporate Enterprises Ltd (Mark Thatcher)
All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

G-SHSS Enstrom 280C-UK Shark (1060) Sold to Free Flight Aviation Ltd (This was previously G-BENO !!!)


G-SHUU Enstrom 280C Shark (1221) Sold to Harvey Ingham


G-SHVV Bell 206B JetRanger II (925) Sold to Grampian Helicopter Charter Ltd and re-registered as G-GHCL
All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

G-SHNN Enstrom 280C-UK Shark (1119) Sold to Farm Supply Co (Thirsk) Ltd


G-SHPP Hughes TH-55A (36-0481) Sold to Richard Bateman & Anthony Bethwaite


G-SHRR Agusta Bell 206B JetRanger II (8052) Sold to Vanplass Glass Design Ltd
All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

G-SHJJ Bell 206B JetRanger III (2757) Sold in germany and became D-HHFS


G-SHKK Hughes 269A (111-0029) Cancelled by CAA. Sold in New Zealand as spares source ?


G-SHLL Hughes TH-55A (76-0625) Sold to Exec-H Ltd
All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

G-SHDD Enstrom F28C (431) Sold to Malthouse Securities Ltd (this was previously registered as G-BNBS to Skyline Helicopters)


G-SHFF Enstrom F28C-UK (369) Sold to Norman & Carmen Bailey of Manchester Helicopter Centre


G-SHGG Enstrom 280C-UK Shark (1112) Sold to Haversham Helicopters Ltd
All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

Now the Dennis Kenyon G-SH** series of registrations, all for his company Starline Helicopters Ltd

G-SHAA Enstrom 280 Shark (1011) Sold to Norman & Carmen Bailey of Manchester Helicopter Centre. Seen at Cranfield


G-SHBB Bell 206B JetRanger III (2291) Crashed 2 miles from Biggin Hill in low cloud sadly killing the pilot and his 4 passengers


G-SHCC Bell 206B JetRanger II (1172) Sold to Humphrey Mining Services Ltd. This is one I flew in many times when owned by Yorkshire Helicopter Centre.

All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

Some more Enstrom Helicopters previously owned by one of our members on Shrieking Gazelles.... Mostly out of sequence registrations and even an American registered example with the owners initials. Quite a prolific Enstrom owner before he moved to the Gazelle !


G-BPOZ Enstrom F.28A-UK (281)


G-OSAB Enstrom 280FX (2024)

G-OSKP Enstrom 480 (5002)


G-OSWA Enstrom F.28C (138)

N485A Enstrom 480 (5029)

So who is the owner ?

[Helipixman]

Thanks for clearing that one up, although it is in sequence its very apt for the owner !

I have just received in the post, a book by Dennis Kenyon... Appointment on Lake Michigan. I plan to read this in the new year .

[Savoia]

G-BALE owned by Patrick Everard of Brewery business (maybe Dennis could verify this one ?)

Denissimo replies:

It must have been mid 1970's when I flew in to one of Tony Everard's Enstrom gatherings. I have a photo of the day somewhere (around a dozen Enstrom 28A's). G-BALE was an in-sequence number.

My first ever flight in the F-28A was with G-AVUK which was imported by Ken Reid of Twyford Moors Helicopters in Southampton. I think my first ex-Menominee factory purchase was Bill Spear's G-BAIB. Another early sale was G-BAAU to Sam McDonald Hall of the Jecco firm. An interesting aside is that Sam supplied the seating for the original Concord fleet.

More heli memories on request

Dennis Kenyon

[Savoia]

Interesting. Let's see what Denissimo says.

[Savoia]

Lovely stuff Elipix!

Perhaps 'DUPE' was reserved for but never actually used?

Looking forward to further posts.

[Helipixman]

Having just looked at some early registrations used on helicopters I am wondering If I/we may have missed a few ?

G-BALE owned by Patrick Everard of Brewery business (maybe Dennis could verify this one ?)
G-BAML owned by Alan Mann Helicopters Ltd
G-BBHL owned by Bristow Helicopters Ltd

Maybe not registered out of sequence but could be personal registrations for owners.

[Helipixman]

Another fantastic reply from Dennis with some more information previously not known about individual registrations. I have seen and think I have photographs af all the all of the helicopters mentioned with the exception of G-RANT which the owner crashed near his home in Scotland. G-KLAY and G-SHRK were briefly based in Scotland. Prior to that I lived in North London and had relatives living in Shoreham so made lots of trips there in the late 70s and in the eighties flew there many times from Elstree.

The one query I have is the registration G-DUPE according to g-info never issued ?

Will did out some more photographs this weekend for a bumper Christmas week post.

[Savoia]

Some further reflections on personalised registrations .. from Denissimo!

It’s getting dark at 15:00 hours ... the office window is streaming with heavy rain. Low stratus is hiding the tree tops and if I could see down to the River Wye, no doubt the banks are flooding.

So, I thought I would have a quick 'dash’ through a few log books for some special registrations obtained for the businesses I worked with as well as some customers in times long gone by.

I seem to remember selling G-HOOK (an MD500) to Dan Taylor whose son demonstrated her at a 1970’s Farnborough. I also displayed the Enstrom at Farnborough.

Then I come across G-KSBF (another 500) that I used for the first micro cine camera attached to the Lotus/Camel sponsored team at a Spa F1 race. At the time I trained a purchaser on his Enstrom that I registered G-ECHO. He of Echo Hall fame in Spa, Northern Ireland. The buyer, Harvey Bicker was a Commander in the UDF and how well I remember being 'warned off' by a Republican sympathiser who threatened me with all sorts of ills if I continued to teach the owner. Harvey's good lady was the locally well-known Elisabeth Bicker ... a concert pianist of note in NI. Look up her piano recording "Irish Fancies".

Another 500 was G-OSPG sold to the amiable Steve Giddings. A true English gentleman who formerly owned Enstrom G-COLL. At the time I was running the flying for fun business of "Heli-Sport" a sort of golf club system where pilots bought a club membership that gave them access to a fully maintained MD 500 that I promptly registered G-HSOO (the S became a 5 when she was free of maintenance!).

Next came G-KLAY ... an orange Enstrom Shark purchased by John Turvey whose business traded as Klay Electronics. I remember flying her one very early morning (5am!) for a TV naturalist whose 6 foot wing span eagle had escaped. The idea was for me to keep the birdie airborne until she could no longer fly and had to land. The Land Rovers then netted and scooped-up the offending bird. The national press had a field day slagging me off, not knowing the eagle was likely to take a small child if it got really hungry. Officialdom would then have had the bird shot! I could imagine the headline had the bird downed me. Eagle 1 ... Helicopter nil!

I quite liked the G-HOVA we attached to an Enstrom turbo Shark. Sold to Eddy Coventry of the mighty ‘B & C Windows.’ Eddy and his partner Les Briggs then flew around the coast of UK for a charity gig. Enstrom G-PALS was displayed at Biggin Hill Air Fair for the owners ... Property Associates Limited. The helicopter was also featured in an episode of ‘To the Manor Born’ with Gaye Barrett taking the part of Penelope Keith (the social climber lead star, Mrs Forbes).

Gary Miller of the Lons Country Club in Bristol purchased an Enstrom G-LONS as did Federated Homes, G-OFED. G-BDAW was owned by Tony Wilson of Auto Alloys and G-CTRN by Gordon C Taylor being an ex-Royal Navy officer.

G-KENY was sold to Ken Stokes and G-RANT to Sir Phillip Grant Suttie in Scotland. G-BGWS was sold to Bernard George Stevens and G-POPS for Enstrom buyer Bob Popplewell. All Enstroms, not forgetting Enstrom Sharks ... G-SHRK and G-LERN for my own flying school at Shoreham as well as G-SHGG for my Starline business at Biggin Hill.

Three of my log books (out of eight) show a further 68 'Out of Sequence' registrations on Enstroms, 500s, Bell JetRangers and a few Schweizer 300s. G-WISK and G-BNBH were brand new 300's I recall. I probably have photos of at least half of them. Oh and the Southernair business owner Stanley Powell had the very first Enstrom 480 serial number 5001 registered G-OSKP. His daughter a show horsewoman named Dupe had G-DUPE of course.

[Helipixman]

G-KNDY Bell 206B JetRanger III (4100) ex C-GFNO and SE-HUG was registered to Dennis Kenyon t/a Aviation Bureau on 21.10.91. It was sold to ASP Helicopter Co and then exported to the USA c.1994 becoming N144H. It then found its way to Mexico becoming XC-JCG and XB-KRK. It was during its time as XB-KRK it crashed at Vallescondido Golf Club, Atizapan, Mexico on 5.6.10

Photo from Helipixman Collection

[Helipixman]

Sorry should have mentioned locations, correct on CSKY and WSKY
HSKY was at Brands Hatch for a British Grand Prix

[Savoia]

Both CSKY and HSKY in my log book. CSKY (better known as G-TALY) was the craft I did my UK PPL training on.

Photo of CSKY at Booker (High Wycombe) and the photo of WSKY at Shoreham. Not sure on the location of HSKY.

[Helipixman]

The Dennis Kenyon G-*SKY series all for Skyline Helicopters Ltd

G-CSKY Agusta Bell 206B Jetranger III (8588) ex G-TALY was registered to Skyline on 16.6.83 and sold to Freddie Starr and became G-JOKE and G-JLEE before becoming its current marks G-DATR.



G-HSKY Hughes 369HM (49-0036M) ex G-BDKL, G-VNPP was registered to Skyline on 23.1.84 and cancelled by the CAA 15.8.88 after a mid-air minor collison with Bell 47 G-AXKO. It force landed with 16 inches of one of its main rotor blades missing, and going through cable just prior to touchdown on 5.2.86 at Tudeley near Tonbridge.



G-WSKY Enstrom 280C-UK Shark (1037) ex G-BEEK registered to Skyline 25.7.83 and sold to First Class Furniture Ltd 8.2.84. It is still current in the UK withBrian Rutterford.


All photos from Helipixman Collection

[Savoia]

I have forwarded the link to this page to Denissimo and have also thanked him for his feedback.

[Helipixman]

As mentioned above Dennis Kenyon purchased G-BPPW a Schweizer S269C (S.1172) and re-registered it G-DRKJ for his son, seen below at Shoreham. It went on to become D-HHSL and is now rgeistered as OE-XRF in Austria.

Look out for the next post with more Dennis Kenyon Helicopters.....the SKY series


Photo Helipixman collection

[Helipixman]

What a fantastic reply from Dennis with information only he would know, you must thank him for me Sav and let him know I have photos of virtually all of the helicopters he mentions. Will post some in coming weeks.

[Savoia]

I have always wondered what this registration means, there does not seem to be anything obvious linking it with owner Godfrey Hope Aviation Ltd in 1982.

To get to the root of this registration conundrum was only going to be solved one of two ways: a) By making contact with Godfrey Hope or b) By making contact with the person who sold him this aircraft.

Thankfully when it came to the latter option, the person in question happens to be an Avia member who writes to us as follows:

G-ROOT was an A model 206 (fitted with a C-18A) which I imported from a company based at Ghent airfield Belgium in 1982. The aircraft (originally OO-CDP) was purchased in a part-exchange deal for one of our training Enstroms G-LERN, which appears as number 2 on Helipix's list of personalised registrations, for this aircraft began as G-BBRS. (This was the early non-turbo Enstrom 28A version and was used on contract with the Metropolitan Police. The G-BBRS registration was of course in recognition of Bertram Roy Spooner who founded the Spooner Aviation group at Shoreham circa 1972). Once in the UK, OO-CDP was registered as G-JETR and then re-registered later the same year when I sold it to Godfrey Hope.

Now there is little chance of deducing the reason behind G-ROOT's registration unless you are familiar with the following: Godfrey, who was a lovely man and an absolute gentleman, was of Ghanian origin and one of the first African helicopter owner/pilots in the UK. In the late 70's (when we had just three TV channels) there was a series called 'Roots' which dramatised the story of a slave who was brought from Africa to America. The main character in that series heralded from West Africa, albeit neighbouring Gambia. Godfrey, in his characteristically self-depreciating manner, thought it would be fun to name the aircraft 'ROOT' partly in tribute to the title of this series (which had been quite popular) and also in part as an acronym pointing to his Ghanain Roots.

Regarding some of the other entries on your forum, I saw G-WIZZ mentioned. I bought her (damaged) for the princely sum of £17,000 (yes, that's seventeen!) in 1984, had her fixed up, and sold her to the Hubbard Group in Suffolk the following year. A little story you might like about G-WIZZ involves the sign writer we used for our registrations. Somehow, he managed to double the second letter to produce G-WIIZZ! The daft thing is I flew that helicopter around the country on public transport/air-taxi work for several weeks before someone spotted the error, a sort of ... "Paris in the Spring"... situation!

G-BUZZ was also one of mine from the 90's and I flew G-CHOC but never owned her. G-KENY was always assumed to be mine, and I did buy her (originally as G-BJFG) but then sold her to Ken Stokes. Ken's business traded as 'Business Forms' so his next helicopter became G-KSBF ... Ken Stokes Business Forms.

I won’t go on too long ... but just to say I probably allocated nigh on one hundred private (out of sequence) registrations to the 298 fixed-wing and helicopters sold through Spooner Aviation in the 1970’s and 80s. After Spooner with Starline Helicopters I ran through the entire SHAA, BB etc. sequence ending with G-SHZZ, a Bell 206 which I sold to Mark Thatcher. Then with Skyline Helicopters at Wycombe Air Park I began the sequence G- -SKY and finally with the G-OSHA, B, C series at Redhill.

I also registered a Hughes 300 G-DRKJ which I had bought for my son DRK Junior.

Best wishes to all Aviafora members.

Dennis Kenyon

God love you Denissimo, we are so appreciative of your contribution!

Denissimo mentioned that G-ROOT was originally OO-CDP when he bought her and of which I happened to have a photo in my collection:


...Agusta-Bell 206A JetRanger OO-CDP as seen in Belgium in the 1970's

[Helipixman]

G-ROOT Agusta Bell 206B JetRanger II

I have always wondered what this registration means, there does not seem to be anything obvious linking it with owner Godfrey Hope Aviation Ltd in 1982.

It was originally registered in the UK as G-JETR before G-ROOT and had the subsequent UK registrations of G-FSDG and G-COUR before being sold in Austria as OE-XLM


Photo Helipixman Collection

[Savoia]

Lol, just great shots Elipix, fantastico!

[Helipixman]

Western Air (Scotland) Partners seemed to like the Out of sequence registrations having four of the first 50...
G-BUZZ, G-CHIC, G-WASP and G-WOSP.









Helipixman