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Horsford's a hive of Helicopter activity.

 

Norwich can be a busy little airport with scheduled national, international and holiday flights, not to mention its vital helicopter flights serving the North Sea oil and gas industry.  This feature aims to help demystify Horsford's skies a little, by breaking down the common helicopters that you will see over the village.  So, if you've ever looked up and wondered just what it is that's making all that clattering noise, and where they might be going in such a hurry, this feature should bring some reason to the helicopter activity you see and hear over our village.

 

Helicopters make up, by far, the largest amount of aircraft movements at Norwich, with some 40 flights most days.  It's one of the busiest heliports serving the North Sea oil and gas industry.  But other visitors to our skies come from farther afield.  What follows is a list of the  'usual suspects'  that you'll see flying low over the parish, and in the surrounding countryside.  In the (very unlikely I'm sure) event that you curse our local 'wocka-wockas', consider this an identification parade . . . an opportunity to know your enemy.

 

For identification purposes, I'm focusing on aircraft livery  -  their paint jobs.  Aircraft identification by colour and aircraft type can be a fascinating hobby, but for the purposes of this feature I'm avoiding delving too deeply into aircraft manufacturers and aircraft models.  I do however offer links for anyone interested in learning a little more.

Note that all photographs are the copyright of Les West, unless otherwise indicated.  

 

Other than your own back garden, there are a couple of other great locations for aircraft viewing in and around Norwich Airport.  The City of Norwich Aviation Museum  in Horsham St. Faith is fairly unusual for an aircraft museum, in that it sits immediately adjacent to an active, busy airfield.  It's a great place to see preserved, static aircraft alongside the control tower, whilst watching the airfield movements.  The Oasis Cafe, in the airport terminal, is also a great place to have a drink and view the aircraft movements immediately outside the large viewing window.

The  Usual  Suspects

DanCopter,  above,  operate a handful of aircraft out of Hellesdon, Norwich, supporting the North Sea oil and gas industry.  You can get a good view of them, most days, from Buck Courtney Crescent, alongside Norwich Airport Park & Ride.  Their aircraft livery can be confused with that of Bristows aircraft, but look closely and you'll see the white runs from the tail to the belly.  Currently  DanCopter  have a couple of helicopters with different colours to the main blue, but the general livery is the same (expect these aircraft to gain the blue main colour at some point in the future).  You can find details of DanCopter's fleet and aircraft types HERE.

Bond Offshore Helicopters,  above,  operate out of their hangar at Gambling Close, Hellesdon, Norwich, supporting the North Sea oil and gas industry.  You can get a good view of them, most days, from Buck Courtney Crescent, alongside Norwich Airport Park & Ride.  Their aircraft livery is fairly distinctive at the moment, being mostly bright red.  But you will see the occasional blue/white aircraft.  You can find details of Bond Offshore Helicopters' fleet and aircraft types HERE.

NHV,  above,  operate out of the same hangar as DanCopter at Buck Courtney Crescent, Hellesdon, Norwich, supporting the North Sea oil and gas industry.  You can get a good view of them, most days, from Buck Courtney Crescent, alongside Norwich Airport Park & Ride.  Their aircraft livery is fairly distinctive at the moment, being bright yellow.  You can find details of NHV's fleet and aircraft types HERE.

Bristow,  above,  operate a handful of helicopters away from public view on the eastern side of Norwich Airport.  They too support the North Sea oil and gas industry.  You can view the comings and goings of their aircraft from Buck Courtney Crescent, alongside Norwich Airport Park & Ride.  Their aircraft livery can be confused with DanCopter, so I include a single DanCopter aircraft in the images above  -  can you spot the odd one out?  Look out for the distinctive orange chevrons on the belly, when beneath a Bristow chopper.  You can find details of Bristow's worldwide fleet and aircraft types HERE.

Clockwise from top left:

 

East Anglian Air Ambulance, East Anglian Air Ambulance, SaxonAir helicopter charter,  SaxonAir helicopter charter,  SaxonAir helicopter charter,  and finally the retired Norfolk Police helicopter hangared with DanCopter helicopters (Suffolk Constabulary Air Operations Unit  now covers Norfolk).

 

For identification purposes these helicopters' colours are all quite distinctive, additionally note they all have  'skids'   -  as opposed to wheels!

 . . and finally, ever wondered what Horsford looks like to those Helicopter pilots and passengers above?

 

This is a flight out of Norwich Airport, travelling east of the Cromer Rd roundabout and across the fields to Horsford.

Lee Wright

HorsfordLife.com

4th August 2014

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