Bob writes. Normally I have taken the pictures myself so I'm never in them, however, The Picture of G-SOLO and myself was taken by another shortly after G-SOLO's first test flight. We built the aircraft ourselves and it was the first Pitts S2S outside the USA
Members of the Team in Malaysia when we took the Pitts's out there for the Malaysia tour. I'm not in the Pic as I was taking it as with most of my pics.
Anyway, from left to right:-
Alan Dix (Current status unknown), George Powell (Rothmans Representative, current status unknown), Rod Rea (Now Deceased), Marcus Edwards ( Now Deceased), Brian Lecomber [AKA (affectionately), Brian Cucumber] (Now Deceased
The Rothmans support Islander, flown by Norman Rhodes. Picture was taken by me from Pitts G-BADZ.
I gave my camera to John Brobyn, one of the engineers who travelled in the islander along with Norman Rhodes (Pilot) and Dillip Patel also an engineer. That's me in G-BADZ in echelon Right off the islander with Rod Rea in G-BADY echelon Right off me in G-BADZ, in what we called 'loose formation', used for formation transits.
Below us is the Malaysian Jungle. In consideration of our survival in the event of an engine failure, we were sitting on a one man dinghy with a small back parachute. We didn't fancy our chances much crash landing in the tops of the trees in a fabric covered aircraft. The idea, in the event of an engine failure, was to unclip the dinghy and clip it to the aircraft tubular structure inside, roll the aircraft inverted, hit the seat belt releases (two of them), fall out, pull the rip cord and float down gently into the treetops. Hopefully, we could then spend some time with a family of monkeys waiting for a Malaysian Air force chopper to pick us up.
