Of legends are us.a as a

Lemons –
What’s big, black and yellow, and hovers a lot?
A Bumblebee is all of those.
As insects go it’s big.
Somehow, the Bumblebee takes on similar characteristics to a helicopter, except it doesn’t have the rotary wings. Watch a Bumblebee closely as it manoeuvres around plants, hovering just above the ground whilst gazing downwards during foraging and for nesting reasons too. Watch the down draught it creates. It’s massive. If the Bumble bee is seen nearby flora, the plant life is literally washed over with turbulence.
In a lot of ways the bumble bee does resemble a helicopter.
In the bird world a bird would flap its wings up and down – every time.
A Kestrel for instance can hover just like a helicopter, but it still flaps its wings up and down when in hover mode.

Given its ability to enable flight, the principle behind the wing is to force air downwards, which in turn then pushes the bird (or plane that it is attached to) upwards.
Uplift is generated by creating high pressure under the wing and low pressure above the wing. Pressures are created by increasing or decreasing the speed of air over the surface, so the shape of the wing is instrumental to the flow of air. The faster the airflow, the lower the pressure. The slower the airflow the higher the pressure.
Because the higher pressure is underneath the wing, therefore the higher pressure will push the airplane, or bird upwards.
Because the air above the wing is designed to move faster than the air below the wing, the result is a kind of sucking pressure from above which then in turn opposes the weight of the body that the wings are attached to.
As a wing is moved forwards (by thrust) the speed of the passing air above the wing is powered at higher speeds (due to the shape of the wing) which changes the speed and direction of the oncoming air, forcing it down behind it and powering the plane, or bird, up into the air.

The Bumblebee doesn’t flap its wings up and down. It flaps its wings back and forth in a sweeping motion similar to the following: if you were to extend your arm out at right angles to your body with your thumb upper most and palm facing outwards and then sweep your arm forwards, once at full swing forwards, turn your wrist so that your palm faces downwards and sweep your arm backwards.
With some similarity then to a helicopter, but whereas a helicopter blade will go full circle, a bees wings won’t. So in washing its wings back and forth and at the angle that it does that with those wings, small vortices in the air above its wings are then created. Those vortices are a bit like mini hurricanes, the eyes of which have lower pressure than the surrounding air, so keeping those eddies of air above its wings helps to keep the bee aloft.
Obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that. The bee for instance has two wings on each side of its body, both of which are attached to each other. The fore wing is larger than the hind wing and both are attached to each other by way of a hook system (a bit like hook and loop, or Velcro.)
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/how-do-bees-fly
The Bee. It’s a bit like a lemon really.
So that’s the Bumblebee. Speaking of which, the oldest known bee fossil is 100 million years old.

Oranges –
The helicopter on the other hand, (as opposed to an airplane) has wings that are the closest resemblance to the Bees wings in their approach to create flight.
They are shaped the same as an airplane wing – like an aerofoil. This defines the speed at which the air flows over the rotary wings. The contours of the blade have to be the same as an airplane wing because the blade is always going to be slicing through the air in a forward motion. The shape above the wing has to create the lowest pressure whilst the shape below the blade has to create the highest pressure. Depending on the tilt of the blade depends on the movement of the helicopter, either up, down, forwards, backwards, left, or right. That might sound like an impossibility all in itself, except for the addition to the helicopter blade system known as a Swash Plate; which provides the pilot, and hence the blades, with a mechanism to enable the whole blade system to tilt one way or the other. That in effect means there are now two ways of tilting the blades.
An incredibly simplified description doesn’t do justice to the complexity of designing and making a helicopter.
And neither does it for the Bumblebee either. They are however the nearest similarity in the act of nature versus man made when trying to explain the Bumblebee’s ability to fly.
Before robotics and super quick photography the only answer as to how a Bumblebee could actually fly was a theory. And in that publicised theory it was deemed impossible for it to fly. Which was a ridiculous theory to contemplate given that the Bumblebee can in fact fly.
The biggest fault in that theory was the fact that any die hard observer was under the impression that the bee flapped its wings up and down, where as in reality it didn’t do that at all. The Bees wings flap forwards and backwards.
At a flap rate of 230 wing flaps per second, the Bee’s flight ability was always going to prove a mystery until the advent of something able to detect intricately the characteristics of them, namely technology.
All said and done, the main point I’m inferring concerns the amount of wash, or air flowing downwards in order to keep the vehicle stabilised in hover or going upwards. Watching a Bumblebee slowly passing low over the ground will reveal incredible downwash.

The helicopter was not an invention as a result of studies of the Bumblebee. Just like the Bumblebee however, in hover or lift off mode the downwash from the blades is enormous. It has to be. If you were to say that the force required to create the downwash is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the lift force on the airfoil (blade), then that just comes down to an example of the application of Newton’s third law of motion whereby each force has an equal and opposing force:
Third law – when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in and opposite in direction on the first body.
To lift a helicopter off of the ground is going to create a huge downwash. That force of air has to overcome the weight of the body it has to lift. Slightly different in the case of the airplane whereby thrust is used in conjunction with the wing to give lift.

Whilst at work –
I was at work one day. The work place was a mechanical engineering workshop dedicated to the repair and overhaul of very big vehicles; all sorts of vehicles, mainly with tracks for drive, but some with wheels.
In the case of the wheeled vehicles at the time, and because of their big size and usage; were equipped with automatic gearbox transmissions. They came into the workshop on a pre- arranged time (monthly) and service interval rota.
Breaking that down still further saw each vehicle undergo not only its service routine, but a similar to a car MOT test. Everything was tested in a written down routine, right down to the selection of headlights and indicators to check that they were all in working order.
There were already certain safety parameters to adhere to, as within any type of workshop. The list of tasks required on each vehicle; which were by design covered by the simple completion of a tick list, numerically ticked off one by one as each one, was then completed. A fairly simple format really.
As the workshop required vehicle maintenance on a variety of different vehicles, the wheeled vehicles on this occasion were only therefore in a certain part of the workshop. This part was designed to accommodate those wheeled vehicles as and when they came in for their own type of inspection test. This certain part of the workshop was nothing special. More like just a work bay with specialised equipment for that type of, vehicle dotted around in various places. It worked well enough for the aspect of work covered.

A lot of staff worked in this workshop, well over 200 in all. As work input changed – in as much as the type of vehicle that required upgrades or rebuilds changed periodically, so also did the staff working on them. It wasn’t unusual to work with and become one dedicated team during one month, then as the work input changed the staff did too. Staff just got rotated around at the say so of the management, based on their own derived spreadsheet as to who was suitably qualified or not. As a consequence then the colleagues came and went, and also remained at the same time, but spread about in different parts of the workshop.
I wasn’t working on the aforementioned type of wheeled vehicles in its workshop area bay at the time, although my work was involved with that wheeled platform, but a more specialised form of work in another area of the workshop.
I formed a working relationship with all the guys who worked there, but in particular with one other guy who was on the same team. The fact that we were both company employed as opposed to from an agency somehow made it easier to align as working colleagues.
It was funny really because this guy became a well-known work colleague of mine and out of the blue, without any prior knowledge, we ended up in the same airport for a holiday, on the same day, and in the same plane, to the same country, then on the same coach from that country’s airport – but to a different resort.
Who would have thought it? We didn’t. It kind of cemented a friendship between us.

And technology –
Whilst at work and talking through the day we mutually aligned with a favoured pastime, the subject of which was nothing to do with holidays. We got talking about photography. Photography at that time was accelerating into the future at an unimagined pace.
Such is technology that one form of hobby, or tooling, or just items in general life, very quickly moves onto the next one and before you know it, any item purchased to keep up with the forward motion of technology is quickly outdated and unable to keep up.
This was also the case with photography. In terms of time, I had waited it out deliberately so that I wouldn’t get caught in the trap of buying to keep up, followed by disappointment due to the upgrade of that type of hobby by advances so great that meant keeping up would involve more investment in time and cash that wasn’t particularly desired . My approach was to allow for the stabilisation (as it were) of that technology, if there is such a thing.
Technology was certainly not the same as it used to be. Cars for instance didn’t really move on technologically to the consumer for stagnant years, or so it appeared. A petrol engine was a petrol engine and apart from various shape configurations the car in general was pretty much the same as it was before. Obviously advances in engine technology were ongoing. Invisible advances to the consumer.
When it came to photography I was so used to going on holiday, or days out, or anywhere I thought it necessary to have a camera, with carrying around a lumpy and uncomfortable camera bag with a 35mm SLR camera inside. In fact, as time went by, I had noticed the increased difficulty in being able to even buy 35mm films. At one time the 35mm film was freely available from any good retail outlet that dealt with that type of thing. So much so, and also because using films seemed a bit wasteful if I’m going to be honest, that 35mm films were getting harder to buy singularly at one at a time and were liberally packed into bags of ten or more at a time. A good idea when looking at how after processing each film, a general rule of thumb of mine was that if I got one single good photograph out a whole 36 exposure film then I would be happy!
That’s ridiculous by anyone’s standards, isn’t it?
Well no, actually. I think it was the only realistic way to look at it. We’re not all photographic geniuses who are able to snap happily away and know that at each click of the button we have a photograph worthy of keeping and so then move onto the next subject without so much as a cursory thought as to whether we should maybe back that photograph up with another half a dozen just in case.
Journalists didn’t use machine gun photography for the fun of it.
Many has been the time when a wedding was left with no photographs to show due to inept behaviour by a photographer who believed too much in themselves to go to the bother of being absolutely sure that they were covered.
So a good SLR camera was only as good as a film in it. If you ran out of film at a crucial moment then the camera was as good as junk. All the more sense in selling bags of films by the dozen, or whatever, so that photography by anyone was worth doing in knowing that under all covered circumstances there was always going to be enough film.
And then came technology. The bags of multiple films became harder to find until one day they weren’t on sale at all. That was the 35mm film camera end day. If you had a camera and did at least some home research, the demise of the SLR camera was foreseen. It wasn’t exactly a clouded observation. Research revealed a lot of new advances in photography that were fast leaving the SLR camera film and myself behind.
A misguided sense of guilt could have left me floundering around with 35mm films for far longer than was necessary. The guilt part of it stemmed from the fact that to buy the camera of which I did have was in itself breaking new ground in my own little world by moving on from a purely instamatic camera which was long past its sell by date prior to the SLR.
So a decision formed: just take the plunge and immerse into new technology. It wasn’t an easy decision after spending years getting to know my SLR camera; which sadly out of a huge range of optional buttons and programmes, I only ever used in an automatic mode.
Jumping into new technology is scary, especially if you have no one to guide you through the maze of options, not to mention a whole new language to learn just to understand it.
My dormant (low tech) period of making do with old camera tech lasted for over a decade. A bonus in some ways in allowing for all those years in-between to advance the market with whatever technology took form.
After a friend of mine turned up one day and showed me what he was able to do with a digital camera; that was convincing enough. He wasn’t a tech guy any more than I was.

I loved my brand new digital camera. Sourced from a massive array as the one to suit myself more than any other in its own field. It had more features only packed in a functional automatic guise, than my old camera and it was a fraction of the size and weight. It didn’t require a film and I could carry it on my pocket. It was a case of immersing myself into the digital age with regards to photography.
The digital camera was so small and lightweight that for a period of time I would take both my old film camera and my new digital camera and take the same photograph with both cameras just to be sure there would be a picture to stick in an album once back home.
In retrospect it was a ludicrous situation that seen by others must have surely been viewed as such. And by myself too, eventually. I mean that was the draw of the photograph album. And I had gone to great lengths to create a photograph album set to be proud of: multiple ring binders all the same.
It’s even more ludicrous that to keep the album theme going the entire arrangement of photographs required to put in those albums; from a digital camera does then get printed out through a special machine from a high street shop.
Best I acknowledge that as the changeover period. It’s hard to move on from the photograph album aspect of memories if you spent your entire life arranging it that way.

Now engaged in the art of digital photography, I became a firm advocate of it and tried to become more at one with that technology, in as much as it is possible to do that with what basically is only a point and shoot. The more the subject was hyped the less, it became apparent, that I actually did know. My position in reality was that I merely had a digital camera. To get up to speed I bought a few digital camera magazines and was bombarded with identical photographs on two consecutive pages showing the difference between each other; which quite frankly you would have had to have been a scientifically educated analyst to spot the difference. Those photographs were backed up by script identifying the individual adjustments required to make the difference. Poppycock in other words.
The belief that I was ever going to become a photographic expert with such things as ‘F’ numbers and alike left me feeling out of my depth and so my take on that was to leave it to the experts who manufactured these things and therefore just set the switches to automatic if any switches were there to set. Otherwise point and shoot and be done with it.

When it came to talk at work, the colleague of mine that I worked alongside (to be known as Andris – an ancient Greek variant of the name Andrew) also became interested in digital cameras and I was more than happy to share my experiences of them. Not wishing to extol the virtues of my own sourced digital camera, I did however praise the new camera format. After which he went along and bought the very same camera as I had.

In the field of digital camera photography a flaw became very apparent very quickly. This flaw I was able to compensate against in the early years of owning a digital camera because in my bag I also had my old 35mm camera. And those old cameras were all built with the addition of a view finder.
A pocket size digital camera had no place for a viewfinder and I believe the selling tactics by camera manufacturers was misplaced against a public that was too easily sold on new technology to notice the problem when getting involved. As such, that included myself.
So when taking identical pictures with both cameras, in the early years enabled me to definitely have the picture that I wanted (or at least tried to have), the idea was never about having two cameras in that one respect. It was because one had a view finder and one didn’t and that feature hopefully allowed me to get that picture that I would want to keep.
It was precisely that method of having two cameras that enabled me to identify the problem in the very beginning. Never was it more apparent than when taking a picture on a sunny day. At those times were when it became all too obvious that this point and shoot thing with a digital lens was not exactly a flawless idea.
The early years of digital photography were new technology with even newer technology waiting to edge itself in. Removing filled SD memory cards was a faf and with similarities to that of the old film, when it’s full, it’s full. But it was an accepted faf because fitting a thousand photos on a memory card was a lot less of a faf than fitting 36 maximum photos on a film.
So these new cameras did have their foibles to deal with and all were quite easily maintained once all the practices were learnt. The screen however, above all others, showed itself up as the bit that didn’t live up to its name. With its overall appearance; looking inadequate in some ways a dull screen didn’t appeal too much.
Unfortunately for me the camera I selected seemed to pick up a gradual light eating disorder – if something existed. Something was eating its way through the light receptors behind the face of the screen itself, gradually turning them from an invisible receptor of light (be it LCD, or whatever it was) that then showed itself on the screen as a part of the picture. Something that appeared as a very small black square. Over time the black squares multiplied until there was a black line across the screen and another black line and then a bigger area and so on.
That never was an issue with my screen to begin with, only in the latter part of its usage did it become an issue.

Andris and his camera –
Andris turns up at work one day and drags me to one side to show me the camera that he had bought over the weekend. He was right proud of having mastered the various buttons and switches and so on. He ran through a whole load of photos that he had snapped away.
He’d turned the corner pretty dammed quick in comparison to myself. Whereas I had spent years investigating and waiting to hopefully buy at the right time, he hadn’t bothered with any of that and had just gone out and bought one off the shelf – and it happened to be the same one as my own.

The weeks went by and work was work. A few weeks after Andris had bought his new digital camera he came to see me to show me the latest photos he had taken whilst out and about. He wasn’t as chirpy as was his normal self. When showing me the camera he pointed out to me that it had developed a problem. There was black lines all over the screen. As a screen showing a picture it was still able to do that, only with black lines interrupting the overall picture.
Obviously you would send or take it back to where you bought it from if this all happened during a warranty period. Except he didn’t. He kept it and just accepted that the issue wasn’t big enough to render the camera unusable.
There was an argument worth getting involved with from my angle. If it were mine I would take it back. The distortion to the screen was a distraction when taking photographs because not only did the camera not have a view finder, it became apparent that this particular type of screen (although an incredible advance) lacked any type of user friendly apparatus on a bright day.
There were compromises made in that the picture as shown was not exactly as seen by the naked eye. Here it was worth noting that the further in the subject was zoomed, the less focussed it became. Although with this the manufacturer was not at fault, just a noted flaw by myself.
Then as well as that there was less of the screen to look at because the black squares that were eating up the screen blotted out what the user actually wanted to see in the first place.

Andris surprised me in the way he had mastered the use of his new camera. With apparent ease he flipped through the photos and zoom apparatus to highlight individual aspects of certain photos. I personally wasn’t interested in the topic of each photograph that he had to show me; the pictures of which were related to his weekend. However, although those were what he saw at the time of taking the photo, it did interest me in what he saw as worth taking photos of and what he saw as worth zooming into. They were just pictures.
The black squares and lines obscuring parts of the screen were a nuisance. Whilst viewing his photos I had to formulate within my own mind a suitable response to the those horrible special effects. I pointed this out to him and asked whether he had come into contact with rain. But he being he, made small potatoes of it. He wasn’t, or couldn’t be bothered to pursue the warranty pathway. As far as he was concerned it would either clear up all by itself, or wasn’t that bad a problem to stop him using it for what it was designed for.
Fair enough then.

Work ethics –
Resuming work, the day was at that present time a normal day at the workshop. My close work colleague and myself were engrossed with our task of completing our given agenda.
Midway, or thereabouts, through the day the workshop tannoy system sprang into life with a call for Medicaid.
We all knew what that meant. Someone somewhere had the misfortune to be involved with an incident that required the assistance of the nearest First Aid member of staff to attend. The first aider was then expected to be at the scene to assist in whatever trained way he, or she deemed appropriate.
The call for Medicaid was pretty much guaranteed to draw the attention of anyone within earshot. And as that was anyone who could hear the workshop tannoy system, therefore it was most staff, as it goes.
Andris dropped everything and started talking in a raised voice. ‘It’s Medicaid, it’s Medicaid. Hang on, where is it?’ He listened intently to the tannoy as it made its announcement in a ridiculously blurted and almost incomprehensible tone. The tannoy repeated itself and along with the initial call for Medicaid, then stated where the incident took place.
‘It’s over there’, Andris shouted with his arm raised and pointed towards the wheeled vehicle area.
‘Hang on’ I said, ‘we can’t just wonder over there, there’s an incident taking place.’ Andris stopped in his tracks to consider the implications of wondering into an area where it was probably best not to wonder.
‘No, you’re right’ Andris muttered.
I hadn’t wanted to interpose with a decision that was – firstly not with authority and secondly mine against his. But rules are rules. Best all round if we let them get on with whatever it was that was going on around the corner without us as an audience. Some poor member of staff was at that point involved in an emergency of some kind. Probably something to do with injuring him, or herself.
Together, Andris and myself continued as before. Half-heartedly attempting to carry on amongst a background of bush telegraph. Word spread quick throughout the workshop. Before we knew it the details of the previous incident were known to anyone with a slight interest, including both Andris and myself.
The incident was serious. That was what we all learnt from word on the block. An ambulance would have to be summonsed. In itself, the incident requiring an ambulance was a quite unusual occurrence there at the workshop. One that was sure to gather the crowds that’s for sure. People being people it was just human nature.
Work kind of slowed a bit from then on. Talk took over from work and then conversational snippets created the rumour mill. What wasn’t rumour was the fact that the guy who was involved in the incident didn’t just slip or trip. He was in fact caught like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle – literally.

Rules are rules and instructions aren’t rules –
Unlike here in the year 2020, back along between 2000 and 2010, driverless cars were unheard of, let alone a trialled concept.
Now as a further developed concept and a realistic technology with a paraphernalia of safety sensor and safety implicated wizardry, and upon further investigation, the chances of accidental damage seem as close as they ever were if taking the human element onto consideration.
Surely in years to come those elements that require the input of a human being will slowly be erased and therefore negate the possibility of accidental damage due to forgetfulness, or idleness.
There are so many safety features available as a standard fit to today’s cars that there are just too many to mention. Most folk wouldn’t be aware of what sensors have been added and where to ensure some kind of safety benefit.
Maybe it would be unfair to label today’s generation as not being aware of some of the dangers faced in every day motoring before certain safety measures were invented and installed, merely because the cars available today include features not available years ago. But in all fairness to general common sense, on the other hand maybe they should. Because on that account it’s a bit unfair to label the elder generation unsafe because they don’t do something that their technology didn’t ensure was catered for by a computer, sensor or robot.
Thinking aloud, would it be fair to say that we took too many chances before all these modern conveniences?
Yes, probably. But sometimes it was that way or no way.
The computer and sensor technology has allowed so much in terms of taking the thought process away from the person. However, all said and done, the circumstances involving the incident in our workshop wouldn’t really fall into any of these categories of modern technology, more like general idleness, user in-proficiency, or as a result of things being just a case of get by whatever way one could. And that option would have been solely down to the user at the time, whether complying with or ignoring laid down instructions.
It’s even odder still that by equipping vehicles with all the latest gadgetry and safety equipment previously unimagined, not only does it offer a genuine improvement, but just for the sake of a phase in period, a lot of it is manually enabled for override, or disconnect. Uh!
Computers and driver aid technology all came in after an age without those items. I don’t think it is a fault of the human person for being lackadaisical in his, or her ways when after having been brought up in a time when these items simply weren’t available. Certain ways forward were all too generally used and taken for common practice.

Medicaid –
Andris and myself continued in the workshop area that we had been allocated. Working to a schedule didn’t seem as much a requirement as in the normal working day, by now and at this time. The rumour mill had gained strength and the practice of talking and therefore musing the possibilities, actions and so on and so forth over and above work, became the common theme.
A crowd had gathered around the area where Medicaid was summonsed to. From our own perspective, Andris and myself were within viewing distance of the wheeled vehicle working area – just about. The congregating folk were becoming obvious to us and anyone else who had a view.

I’m not sure that ‘funny’ as a word would effectively explain why the whole workshop had by now slowed to such a pace that managing work output by any foreman or operation manger had now, by virtue of numbers against it, became unmanageable. The desire for folk to know what was going on was not worth challenging. The incident that had taken place was quite obviously a lot more serious than at first thought.
After a long time the tannoy finally spluttered back into life.
Andris and I hadn’t wondered into the main workshop at all to see what was going on, but we knew anyway from all the gossip.
A member of staff had been injured – quite badly as it goes. It seemed that once again the old way was the best way .At least form the operators point of view. It was one of those times when it was that way or no way. It definitely could have been averted by the intervention, or by way of help by another member of staff. That would have been one way. The other would have been to follow the laid down processes. But you know, where there’s a will there’s a way. There was a time when you just got by.
Shame that there wasn’t any safety technology that could have stopped it. Not in as much as it could think for itself at any rate. Certainly not back then.
But now there is. Stop, start, for instance is normal on a vehicle now.
In the old days the idea of stop, starting a vehicle whilst waiting for a train to go by, or waiting for a traffic light to go from red to green was unthinkable. That would mean a replacement starter motor too often. The stop, start feature is a fast gaining and accepted form of driving. And it wasn’t designed primarily as a result of safety consciousness, it was more due to fuel efficiency and averting excess pollution. Safety never came into it.
In fact, the more you look at it the more it comes down to …..not idleness so much as allow technology to take over and think for itself to do what we as people just can’t be bothered to do. So that in turn is a good thing because technology can counteract the ignorance of folk.
Can we be bothered to turn a key when it is required other than at the start of a journey or at the end of one? No. It doesn’t occur to us that to save fuel on idle all we need to do is switch the engine off. To ensure this happens the automatic Start, Stop, has been invented.
But on the other hand, that process of mechanical usage was kind of instilled in the early days for some of us (before computer technology on-mass and extreme close tolerance) that too much use of and it just ends up with folk having to buy a replacement because that item got worn out too quick.
There’s other things too, some of which do have a derived alternative technological replacement and some don’t. Can we be bothered to flick a switch to indicate to other road users which way we want to go? Lots of times, no. Speaking for myself, I do my best to ensure this does happen at the required times. I can’t think why anyone would expect other road users to be able to deploy thought transfer as a way of communicating.
Can we be bothered to ensure we are seen? Lots of times, no. It seems headlights have had to be manufactured to switch themselves on because people largely haven’t got the intelligence to work that one out.
And lots of other things too.

The workshop tannoy crackled into life and the voice on the other end talked too fast, too loud and seemingly too close to the microphone. A muffled announcement stated that because of the Medicaid incident in the workshop an ambulance had been called but was unavailable in its known form. With that in mind the air ambulance had been dispatched.
Judging from the rest of the announcement it was a fair assumption that the managerial staff had talked between themselves and had come to a decision. One that required the following speech dictating how (in effect) it would be their way or no way and that we were to ensure work progressed in the normal fashion, no matter whatever reason there may be to perhaps wonder from that and that we were stay at our benches.
Engines, noise, and big vehicles moving about the site was an everyday occurrence at the workshop and brought no interest from anyone in the normal daily routine of things. But an air ambulance of all things. That would be different.
Andris and myself exchanged conversation. Here on this day an air ambulance was about to make an appearance on site and we – the workshop staff, had been ordered to stay at our benches.
In itself, the order to do something perhaps deemed as opposed to human nature was tantamount to asking us to actually do the opposite.
By now, work had stopped. Whilst Andris and I talked between ourselves I tuned my ears into the background. For what difference that made. Being hard of hearing was hardly going to be beneficial when trying to make out an engine noise from far away. Except it just might. I’d found that although losing the ability to make out high frequencies; the ones that mattered so much during conversation, I usually could make out a low droning noise from a distance.

As the minutes passed by the excitement gradually built. You could sense it in the air. It wasn’t just Andris and myself who were now looking forward to an air ambulance arriving on site. And it occurred to both of us in a simultaneous moment that there wasn’t anywhere suitable for a helicopter to land on site. We discussed the various options that may have presented themselves to management as to where a helicopter could safely get away with putting down on the ground, never for one moment considering that it wouldn’t be up to management at all. Why would it? It wasn’t their helicopter. The general consensus of opinion was that management couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery anyway.
The more we pondered the site the less chance there was a suitable place would be available. We’d covered it all – the car park? Yes it was a large area, but no because it was full of cars. Not in-between the workshops, there just wasn’t any space large enough there. At the North end maybe? No, that would be a bit too tight too.
Well, that was the whole site covered and it didn’t look feasible to us.
Not being helicopter pilots and all, that was a half-hearted attempt by us at finding a suitable place to put down. We’d failed to take into consideration the fact that if a helicopter was on its way to pick up an injured person, the last thing it was going to do was upon arriving on site, take a quick look around and bugger off back to where it came from without even bothering to land and pick up the injured person.
As we had together failed to think about that, we then began to wonder whose idea it had been in the first place to authorise a helicopter air ambulance be dispatched.
Maybe the type of injury was the overriding factor. One thing was for sure, it had to have been an informed decision, professionally made by a competent person. There must be a suitably qualified person somewhere with the utmost authorisation who must have made the decision.
None of us workers at the workshop would have put any faith in the people who managed our outfit to come up with a sensible plan.
That’s when I detected, or at least I thought I did, the chop of a helicopter rotor in the air at a distance. I said to Andris ‘heh, listen, there’s a helicopter coming.’
Andris cupped a hand to his ear and I watched him as he concentrated on the ambient noise around at the time. Behind his glasses his eyes dulled over in deep thought. His eyes looked overly large. Andris’ glasses were the old fashioned type, commonly known to all folk who preferred a dig, as jam jar bottoms.
Instant memories struck me from years gone by when I had been at school. The unlucky recipients of huge lensed glasses were ripe for a laugh back then. ‘Heh, jam jars, how’s it hanging man?’ or words to that effect. Often those kids with the big glasses had the micky taken out of them purely because they had to wear those prescription glasses of the time.

‘I hear it’, Andris said. It wasn’t difficult. The workshop had a metal roof and amplified any aircraft noise as though we were the inner contents of a drum.
As the helicopter approached we all looked upwards. It was quite obvious that the helicopter had arrived and better than that, it was apparently circling the workshop. It was definitely going around in big loops. I looked at Andris and he looked at me. We had the same thought together and whereas previously I had been keen to stop Andris from becoming part of an audience where there shouldn’t be one, I instantly voiced my opinion once again, only this time I could see a real advantage in suiting ourselves so I said without further ado ‘Fuck it, let’s go.’ We both made a bee line for the exit door.
Our little work place area had an exit door to the main workshop making our workshop a subsidiary of the big one. We both kind of squeezed into the door entrance at the same time and had to give ground to each other in order to get through at all. Before we moved forwards we both stopped once again as several managers ran past on their way to the main South exit door, followed closely by a gathering crowd of other staff.
It was unreal. There we were being ordered to stay at our benches whilst all the time those that had made that decision were more than prepared to hightail it to the very spot where it sounded as though the helicopter was searching for. Both Andris and myself (and definitely the rest of the working staff too) were very much of the opinion that there shouldn’t be a philosophy of one rule for one and a different one for others. You don’t inspire confidence that way.
We both squeezed through the door as one and trailed the rest of the participants of this moving mass of souls.
The helicopter above us had indeed been circling the workshop. On reflection that was the obvious thing to do. The helicopter had to land somewhere and upon further consideration I then congratulated myself upon the end reflection that ‘why indeed did this lot of useless managers ever think they had the merest of ideas as to where a helicopter should land at a quite compact factory site. Yes, why indeed? None were qualified helicopter pilots to my knowledge and if they were then what the hell were they doing here.
It would have been the pilot, or co-pilot who was the guy, or girl in charge and it would be entirely up to them where they should put the helicopter down. The managers had been watching the roof just like the rest of us and had been in the process of running around in circles as the helicopter above us looped around the site looking for a suitable place to land.
The helicopter now though was stabilising its flight into a more stationary position above, indicating as most of us had now guessed that they had decided to land right there within spitting distance of our own little work place.
After reaching the main South exit door most of the folk scattered to the West direction, probably under the impression that there was a corner in the road system right there and it didn’t appear safe for a helicopter to land with the space available. That in itself would have created a good place to watch from, I suppose.
The managers were ushering folk out of the way. They didn’t know where they were ushering them to in order to be out of the way because the helicopter pilot wasn’t shouting through a loud hailer and pointing to where they had marked as touch down position. Frankly the managers were more in the way than the rest of the staff that had gathered.
Andris and myself veered in a different direction to the rest of them and headed East. There wasn’t anyone where we were headed. Others though saw the reasoning and a few followed us on. Andris reached into his pocket on the run and retrieved a camera from it. By some amazing coincidence he had brought his new digital camera with him to work that day.
I was surprised that he had his camera. Mainly because I didn’t have mine with me. But I was happy too. This was what you called opportunism in the making. A bit of luck really.
We headed together for a couple of forty gallon drums and once there idled about by the side of it. There was no doubting that the helicopter wouldn’t be touching down where we were stood. We were against the edge of another building.
The forty gallon drums were just there. Bit bizarre really. Not many others saw favour in joining us. We’d got the spot almost entirely to ourselves.
I put one of my arms down into the lid of the drum, draping my sleeve down. The lid was on the drum in loose format. The seal ring had been left off for some reason. That went for both of the drums. As soon as my arm was flat on the lid I sensed the feeling of skin in cold water as unbeknown to me the lid was full to the brim with water from a previous night of heavy rain. I hadn’t noticed the film of water. In spite of their being a helicopter nearby, the water was still. The lid just appeared as a shiny painted lid; which was actually a painted lid with about a couple of centimetres of water lying in it.
‘Oh bollocks’ I said out loud. ‘Andris, be careful where you put your arms mate. The lid’s full of water. Don’t want to get your camera wet.’
‘Oh Christ yeah’, Andris replied. ‘Let’s get some photo’s. Shit, look at it’, he said, as he showed me the screen of the camera.
‘Bloody hell Andris, what happened. No, doesn’t matter, just get your photo’s man. I don’t suppose this is gonna happen again in a hurry.’
Andris was spurred on by the urgency of it all. The helicopter was indeed settling down for a slow decent onto the concrete below.
‘Fucking hell Andris, the space isn’t big enough, surely.’ But what would I know. The pilot had sensibly circled the workshop site specifically to find somewhere to put the helicopter down safely. He, or she, was hardly going to squeeze a spinning rotor blade into a gap that wasn’t big enough.
Andris was popping shots off like there was no tomorrow. I was watching the helicopter coming down slowly, and with keeping one eye on Andris. He had me giggling to myself because whist snapping away he was mumbling incoherently to himself. I wasn’t sure what it was that he was muttering. I guessed it was something to do with the screen. The screen itself looked as though Pacman had munched it for a game. There wasn’t too much viewing area left intact.
I tried to pacify Andris. I said to him ‘Don’t worry about the screen mate, once you have the photos the black squares and lines won’t show on them if you get them printed in one of those machines in the shops. It’s only on the screen on the camera.’ I wasn’t sure if he was understanding what I was trying to tell him. He kept snapping away. One thing was for sure, he had loads of photo’s to choose from.
I just wish I had brought my camera with me to work that day.

Jet wash –
Into the future, I was to learn all about the effects of jet wash. My own personal circumstances had never brought me close to anything like it up to and before the time we accidentally discovered the power of it. If I had to rate it on a one to ten scale for excitement or experience, it would score a ten for sure.
Jet wash though is a thrust force. It is not a wing derived pressure.
At the time of the air ambulance incident at work I still hadn’t experienced it. That was yet to come. Unexpectedly it did. And to this day I feel truly humbled by the sheer force made available by a set of rotating turbine blades.

Skiathos airport –
On holiday a few years later, Evangalisa and myself had headed off for a Greek island in the Aegean sea area. Aside from the fact that the holiday was fantastic, the island itself was also fantastic. It sported a facility that was far from unusual, but in its construction brought it into a very close location to passers-by.
Coming into land at that island brought with it all sorts of conjured up photographic opportunities. In the aircraft we had approached the island from a Northerly direction and then had swung around the East of the island to eventually approach from the South. We had been treated to a birds eye view from above at a height that instilled excitement for myself. Not in that we were going on holiday again, necessarily, although a hugely contributing factor for sure, but because I had clocked the location of the airport out of the aircraft window.
As we swung into the airport approach the aircraft dipped into a channel between what appeared to be the main island, and another island. The geographical location of the two indicated two separate islands. They were however joined to each other by a narrow strip of land. In effect this small strip of land then created one island. Luckily for the island, and its destiny as a tourist location, the low lying piece of land acted as an airport and a runway and was conveniently situated at sea level, give or take.
Having been to many Greek islands the fact that one such island had a flat piece of land big enough for a small airport was not at all unusual, but a bonus none the less. Greek islands are mountainous by nature.
It wasn’t completely rare I know, there’s Corfu, and Santorini, and Kefalonia, and others too. The others though didn’t have what this island did have.
This was Skiathos.
On Skiathos there is a road that passes by at the end of the runway. On the road at the end of the runway is a set of traffic lights to control the flow of traffic at times when an aircraft would be using the runway. Not that any local took a blind bit of notice whether the lights were flashing red or not. It didn’t matter what those traffic lights did at any time, they all meant go, as opposed to stop, as far as the locals were concerned. They ignored the traffic lights in much the same way they ignore the requirement to wear a crash helmet.
But those lights were there for a reason. And specifically we couldn’t figure out what that reason was. After all, a plane using the runway was hardly likely to interfere with any car on the road seeing as the runway was at right angles to the road. Ugh? Yeah, that was odd for sure.

Once settled and in the holiday mood, we would go for long walks locally to get a feel for the island and the location of our stay. One such walk led us right up to the end of the runway.
Skiathos is only a small island of whose capital is known as Skiathos. Now that doesn’t say it all, but would suggest that there aren’t really any other towns. That aside, size isn’t everything. Skiathos may be small, Skiathos is also brilliant.

Lounging around at a Taverna one day we had left the hotel with the express intention of visiting the end of the runway. The reasons for that are obvious. I wanted very much to watch a few airplanes come and go from a runway that was within throwing distance of a paved roadway.
This particular taverna was just a small stroll away from the runway and due to the location of the taverna, that also brought with it an amazing view of any airplanes as they either lowered themselves into the island created channel for approach, or left the island rising up through that same channel for take-off, depending on which way the wind was blowing.
Many a happy hour was spent drinking coffee and eating local produce at that very taverna not purely because of, but definitely also because of the view afforded by it for any airplanes. We hadn’t experienced anything that close before. It was exciting.
And since then the same can also be said for the runway at Corfu, although there the scene is a little different in that a lake bridge is what brings the planes closer to whoever wants to take that extra special video or photograph of a landing airplane, or one taking off, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

In Skiathos we had taken a leisurely breakfast at the taverna close to the runway. It was the second breakfast of the day if truth be said. Why not though? When on holiday etc, etc.
After a while we decided to wonder off towards the paved roadway that separated the runway from the beach. A boat yard for repairs and anchorage of various small and quite large rusting hulks of once upon a time freighters of the day sat right next to the beach only yards from the traffic lights on the roadway. It was a nice way to spend a hot day meandering about. Plane activity was sparse. There had been a few that day. Not in huge numbers.

As was our way, we were not there in the height of the tourist season. We were there when the tourist masses weren’t. Either the season was just kicking off, or just finishing. Either way, it meant that for us we didn’t have to negotiate hordes of folk, most of which would be visiting Skiathos as a party island.
As a result of all this the planes that were coming and going were a bit sporadic. You couldn’t run your watch by them. Because of that the chance to wonder off for a look around wasn’t determined by things like a gap in the airplane traffic. We didn’t know when a plane would come or go, it was merely luck if we were sat at the taverna when a plane was using the runway. Even then there seemed too much to leave to chance. The runway would get used both ways and the other end of the runway would mean a drive around the terminal and airport to find another beach at the other end. However, the runway rose ever so slightly in elevation at the other end – or so it seemed. It probably didn’t at all. The other end was further away from anything that would afford a good close view, not to mention the scrub land involved in negotiating just to get close to the high fencing that separated the runway from the beach area.
So we wondered around and looked about and ended up, as it goes, at the traffic lights which were flashing red at the time. A lucky break. It hadn’t been timed. It was pure luck.
We stopped. Looking around we couldn’t see an airplane with its engines running. If there was a plane looking to use the runway to take off it must be at the terminal building a ways off. Or maybe one was coming in. One thing we did know was that the runway on this day was being used the other way around. We had seen planes that day, the odd one or two. The wind was in the direction that wouldn’t favour us our best advantageous view for airplanes taking off. A quick exit down the runway and take off at the far end beyond where we were seemed to be the order there on this day.
They were either going to be taking off over the beach at the far end or coming in from over our heads on this day. That wasn’t so bad.
From the taverna we could have watched incoming aircraft lowering altitude greatly to approach coming towards us. They would touch down further along the strip and unless equipped with a super camera and telephoto lens the moment would be missed. Or the moment they touched down could be missed. No doubt the plane as it came in low could be captured if like on this day we had been at the traffic lights when they lit up.
It was just bloody impossible to get to the end of the runway in time from the taverna in order to catch the plane in the lens as it approached the end of the runway and apron holding area at the taverna beach end.
Yes, from the taverna we could see an airplane coming towards the island in the sky above. As light travels a heck of a lot quicker than sound, I never heard a plane in an allowable time to move. And no, we couldn’t get from the taverna to the beach before an airplane. The walk was a bit too far to make it on time.

As we waited for some activity the gathering folk increased slightly. We noticed a few other tourists. Ones who had been seen wondering around the town. Those that were lucky enough you could say, to find themselves where we were that day, as were we.
Some of the folk were obviously locals. There weren’t many of them.
Sometimes events that happened regularly became non-events. It was easy to get used to something and take for granted that individual something that for someone else was a fantastic event. Something worth getting the camera out for. It happened all the time at work. Loud vehicles going back and forth all day long. In the end your ears get tuned into it and ignore it. For other people it would be something special.
The few locals that had arrived were lounging around on dilapidated and unkept scooters that would fail any roadworthy test or law in the UK. The locals themselves looked equally as unkept as the scooters that they were lounging upon. Their manner appeared to us as a way of passing their time as opposed to watching an event that for us was, or hopefully would be, hypnotically appealing and completely out of this world.
I was ready with the camera, all be it a telephone camera. The locals were slobbing onboard botched up scooters in clothes that may not have been washed for the past week by the looks. They never had a camera between them and didn’t look at all bothered anyhow.
One of the locals dismounted from his scooter and left it on its side stand. The bike flopped onto the stand and held there in the middle of the roadway, the rider of which couldn’t give a flying pig whether it was in the way of anything that might need to use the roadway in a hurry. I suppose with the traffic lights flashing red (much the same as our train crossing lights at home), the necessity to move was negated by that fact. Except of course when it suited, as we had witness and were by now used to seeing. Go meant go when the mind determined, nothing else.
He ambled up to a property wall that stood about four feet high; which separated the garden from the road; the wall of which stood a good one hundred feet or so away from the house itself. He himself flopped onto the wall in the energy sapping heat of the day. It looked all the concentration available for him to do that. There wasn’t much effort involved. The other locals with clapped out scooters were already by the wall. The dismounted scooter rider plucked something to eat out of his pocket and started chewing at it as he slouched on the wall.

Christ almighty, it was hot. Never’d known heat like it. Well, that’s probably not true actually. Having been to lots of Greek islands, they mostly were hot.
The more we stood there the more we were beginning to wonder why the lights were flashing red. They’d been on for ages and there had been no sign of any movement anywhere on the airport tarmac. We supposed that something must be about to happen. Why would some locals be waiting around too if nothing was going to happen? They must know more than we did. On the other hand, may be they were just passing the time of day. And also of course, maybe a plane was coming in, not going out.
Above all it was so hot. It was hot in a nice way. There was a lovely smell of herbs in the air, punctuated by the heat of the day. Herbs and other scented plants were growing in the verges. There was also the smell of the sea from just a few feet away. The sea was calm. Small waves were lapping the shoreline. It was a sandy beach. It didn’t attract tourists from what we saw. It had some rocks strewn about, a few boulders too. Maybe it was the seaweed that put tourists off, There was a bit of that lying around on the shoreline. Or maybe it was the close by shipyard with its rusting tied up hulks of yesteryear.
I began to wonder whether it was worth hanging around to be honest. I looked at Evangalisa and we both sort of raised eyebrows. Neither of us answered each other because we both had waited for so long that we both decided we may as well hang it out for longer.
Something must be about to happen, surely?

There was me thinking about taking in some other walk, or eats, or anything to move things on a bit. Then some movement from over by the airport building. It was a plane. At last a plane was moving and it was a tourist one too. It was heading away from the building at first sight. I mentioned to Evangalisa that it must be heading this way, towards us.
So far that day we had seen a few planes – not many. Those that we had seen had been landing away from us.
Sure enough, when the plane reached the taxiway it headed towards us.
At last! Action.
Over the course of our time there we’d seen a few tourist planes take off and there was a very definite format as to how they achieved that. I guess anything can influence the procedure for take-off. From those that we had witnessed (from a distance), they seemed to taxi to the end, stand still for a short time, power up and let go the brakes all in quick succession and off they flew.
This plane reached our end of the paved taxiway where there was a circular concrete apron for holding. Upon reaching the outer perimeter of its own turning circle the nose wheel turned and the plane then slewed around to face away from us. It stopped still.
It was huge this close up. I took it in as much as I could. It was amazing to stare into the exhaust of a jet turbine. It was really close to the road. I didn’t think that an airplane could be allowed so close to a roadway, it was that close. This plane seemed to use the maximum outer distance available on the concrete apron and stand stock still as close to the road as it was possible for it to get.
The air was tremendous from the jet turbines. Stood stock still the heat haze was bubbling the air around it and the surrounding view under the wings became unfocussed. The raw power was for me – all consuming. Never had I been this close to the awesome might of a jet engine under power. What’s more, I could feel it. We could feel it. It was hot already before the plane turned up. Now it was super-hot with all the exhaust blowing directly towards us.
It was fucking brilliant. I could have shouted, it was so good.

We stood there on the side of the road directly behind the jet turbines under power. We were as close to the fence as it was possible to stand. Luckily for us the fence wasn’t a high one, it was four feet high at the most. The plane was a hundred feet maximum from where we were stood.
It was important for all of us there; us, the other tourists, even the few locals who had gathered, to stay put. Were we stupid or what?
None of us assumed that to be the case as we started to bend against the force. The pilot must be increasing the revs, or fuel input or something. The wash was becoming all the more fierce as every second passed.
It became crucial that we experience this incredible energy. All those present became suddenly protective of anything loose they had on themselves. Clothes, hats, bags, anything without a tie was dragged from its resting spot, unable by any means to stay where it had been placed.
Without further ado those items that had been placed under scrutiny by their owners and held down were torn from their owners’ grip and flung into the direction of the sea. The scooter resting on the side stand in the middle of the road blew over and slithered slightly across the tarmac.
As human beings, we were at an angle to the road that under normal circumstances gravity wouldn’t support.
The heat wave was too much to bear, what with trying desperately to support ourselves in a standing position. The concentration required to stay in position increased ten-fold. It was amazing how much it put the mind to work in order to stand up to this power and heat. Weirdly though, all of us absorbed it for as long as we could. The few locals who had turned up were not directly in the path of the jet wash and were laughing like crazed jokers at the unfolding events happening before them. They’d seen it all before I’m sure.

The airplane stood there without moving. How could it do that? The pilot must have the brakes on, I realised. Surely though, weren’t the forces against a stand still too much even for a set of disc brakes.
I didn’t know how much more of this we could stand. How could the plane just sit there under the forces of such absolute power and not move. More to the point, why was it.
Suddenly it all became too much and everyone in the road bolted for the beach just behind us. The blast intensified.
The sand from the beach and the grit from the road and the verges was flying everywhere in an agitated manner. As we reached the shoreline I squatted down and beckoned Evangalisa to the seaward side of me in order to act as a cover for her. She was having none of it and beckoned me to follow her where we dropped behind one of the boulders strewn across the shoreline.
There was no escape. The boulder acted like a wing and created a low pressure; the same as a wing would do in flight. That in itself then sucked anything we had on ourselves over our heads. It was a mess.
Out at sea there were peoples’ hats floating far away. One of the lady tourists who had turned up lost her handbag out to sea as well. Luckily for her it was floating out there too.
We were balled up behind the boulder. Shouting to be heard was as useless as trying to hold onto anything loose. It was not possible to understand anything either of us was trying to shout. The sand was a acting like a grit blaster. Our T-shirts were flapping furiously in all directions trying to raise themselves as a piece of clothing over our heads. The sand then blasted away at any bare skin and everything else besides.
Why wasn’t the pilot taking off? Could he see the carnage he was creating behind him? Why should he care, there were traffic lights to warn people against being exactly where we were.
Eventually the sound of the turbines increased even more and the pilot let the brakes off. The jet powered away from its standstill position and sped off down the runway.

Everyone raised themselves from out of their hiding place. The locals on the wall had dropped behind it eventually after having laughed themselves into a hernia almost. The lady whose handbag was out to sea was pointing so that her husband could see where he would have to wade out in the water to retrieve it. The others whose hats were also floating out to sea were also looking to see how far they would have to wade or swim to get them back.
The guy whose scooter had blown over walked over to it and up-righted it. He kicked it into life and drove off back to town.
All those still present had a bad hair day that was for sure. Infuriatingly full of sand our heads felt awful. Any bare flesh felt blasted and prickly, not to mention dirty and sticky with sea salt. We felt spent, I guess.
We’d done it though. We knew the power of a jet wash.
Together, we as tourists gathered up. We laughed out loud. We had all gotten what we wanted, and more.

Helicopter wash –
Back at work, Andris and myself were by now stood beside the forty gallon drums. To avoid getting any wetter I kept my arms by my side.
Andris with all his efforts aimed at capturing the perfect photograph was leaning his elbows on the drum in front of himself to steady his arms.
The view of the helicopter descending to the concrete below was as close as we were ever going to get to such an event.
Here behind the workshop the landing site was as good as unmarshalled, the managers of the site having been ignored by all the staff who had turned up to see what was going on. If anyone was going to be in charge of a helicopter it wasn’t going to be this lot. I think we had all worked it out that we would take any orders from the helicopter crew, but not the site managers. I mean, they were so unqualified they could be doing more harm than good. As individuals it wasn’t beyond our comprehension as to where would be safe and where perhaps wouldn’t be safe.
There was plenty of noise and slowly the helicopter touched down onto the concrete. All the while to my surprise the helicopter fitted into the gap with apparent ease. There was plenty of room for the spinning rotor blades after all.
Strangely there hadn’t appeared to be too much in the way of disturbance from the rotors. The water on the lids of the forty gallon drums was still where it had been before the helicopter had turned up.
Andris turned to me and started skipping through all the shots he had managed to take. He was proud that he had managed this. Brought his camera to work on such an opportune day and all. I was happy for him.
Once the helicopter had touched down the pilot had switched the engine off. The rotors slowed to a stop and all was relatively quiet once again.
With no time to waste the medics stepped out from the helicopter with numerous bags of medical equipment hanging from their shoulders. The back end of the helicopter was opened up, revealing the entire inside of it from the rear end. An area big enough to fit a stretcher into. They asked anyone within earshot which way to go and were pointed in the right direction, immediately taken to task by one of the mangers. They then disappeared into the workshop.

We had quickly learnt from bush telegraph and the grapevine that the injured person was quite badly damaged. Apparently he had been conducting a similar operation to that of an MOT on one of these big wheeled vehicles. The vehicle had been parked up in a bay area.
All this seems completely normal, and was, right up until the guy had parked the vehicle in the bay and left the engine running whilst he had jumped off and headed off towards the front of the vehicle to check on something directly ahead of it. The check was aligned with the vehicle itself as opposed to something that might have been in the way. Rightly or wrongly, that was the action he took.
Once the vehicle was parked on the bay area and the driver was stood in front of it, the vehicle developed a mind all of its own and jumped itself into gear. Sadly for the guy in front of the vehicle, not only had he left the engine running, but he also hadn’t left any parking brakes on. Worse still, he had left it idling away in neutral. As it was an automatic gearbox and with no parking brake yanked on, the gearbox wasn’t even in ‘park’ mode on the transmission.
So whilst stood in front of it, this guy sees a driverless vehicle coming towards him, but all too late. He has nowhere to go. He was lucky though because the vehicle hit a brick wall before it completely pinned him against it. There had apparently been some room left to accommodate the approximate size of a person, all-be-it squashed into. There’s no doubt about it that he should have considered himself lucky. A vehicle of that size, shape and weight is capable of worse injuries than he sustained if you happen to be stood in front of it whist it is heading towards you.

The injured person understandably had to be stretchered into the back of the helicopter with great care and attention. Any attention involving back injuries requires the movement of that person to be strictly administered.
The stretcher is carefully loaded into the helicopter and once strapped into place all the doors are then closed. The pilot flicks some switches to engage ignition.
Not being a frequent visitor to helicopter airfields, and being a helicopter fan, the chance to observe one this close up was better than incredible. In previous years gone by, I had bought a radio controlled helicopter of a fairly large scale. At roughly four feet in length it had been one of the larger ones available at the time. I only flew it once and I crashed it. To this day I still consider getting hold of another one to rekindle the desire to be able to fly a helicopter.

In one go it was a lot to take in. I tried to imagine the inner workings engaging into their respective positions as the rotor blades started to turn and pick up speed. Spinning wildly the blades whooshed the air about – mildly. A bit of a surprise to me so far had been the relative lack of air displacement from a helicopter so close.
Andris had his camera pointed at the scene. He was using machine gun effect photography as fast as his finger would allow.
The helicopter stood there for some time with the rotor blades spinning around. It made sense that to get that thing off the ground in a smooth fashion not only took good flying skills, but a lot of concentration as well. Remembering that inside was a guy with back injuries.
It was an adrenalin fuelled moment for sure. I could feel the machinery vibrating through the roadway and the barrels we were either stood against or leaning on.
The pilot must have decided that he was where he should be in terms of whatever was required for the next move. He applied lift to the rotors.
From nowhere and in an instant so quick to completely negate the ability to react to it, the wash from the rotor blades worked its magic and lifted the helicopter off the ground.
The pilot and his machine were reacting to the various inputs from his controls. The folk who couldn’t were those on the ground. Eyes glued to the scene was all we as an audience seemed to care about.

Eventually the helicopter lifted off the ground. Ultra-smooth and relatively slowly. No dipping of the nose like helicopters do a lot when taking off. No quickly accelerating forward once airborne – like helicopters do a lot also. Importantly the helicopter crew had to negotiate the buildings they had landed in-between. Importantly too, they had to ensure that the injured person on board wasn’t part of a bumpy roller coaster ride.

Newtons laws of physics –
To recap (something I inadvertently forgot to take into account at the time of the air ambulance incident): to enable flight, the principle behind the wing is to force air downwards, which in turn then pushes the bird (or plane, or helicopter that it is attached to) upwards. In hover or lift off mode the downwash from the blades is extreme. None more visual is when an airplane is in hover mode, such as mentioned in Speed Science, where the harrier is able to demonstrate just how much (in its own case) thrust is required. It would have been worth remembering.
Other things come into play that of noteworthy significance are basically Newton’s third law of motion, whereby each force has an equal and opposing force:
Third law – when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in and opposite in direction on the first body.
To lift a helicopter off of the ground is going to create a huge downwash. That force of air has to overcome the weight of the body it has to lift.
Similarly, the effects of gravity play an important role. That’s Newton again. Law of Universal Gravitation.

Why was it I wonder that not a single one of us present on the ground that day gave that a second thought. Nothing made the managers any different form the rest of us. If anything it highlighted how rubbish they were making themselves look, as in the following few minutes all hell was let loose.
As the pilot increased lift to the helicopters controls the down draught became an intense storm of havoc on the ground. Everyone was sent running or hiding away from the massive forces the spinning rotor blades created.
This was not a case for the helicopter to get out as quick as possible, or even as quick as probably normal. The slower the exit the more the turbulent air was stirred.
I felt the wind beating against myself. It was a thumping whoosh of air, the forces of which were staggering. And just when the sensation was that the air was stabilising the beat became even more intense. Frankly it was too much to bear. In time too quick to measure as the helicopter rose off the ground the wind below it left its mark.
The scene at the location of Andris and myself changed. Too quickly to measure there seemed to be destruction. Everything turned upside down. There was a huge noise, part of which wasn’t the helicopter. Anything that wasn’t fixed to the ground, or heavy enough by itself – such as a human person, wasn’t designed to equally oppose such forces.
It was hard to know which movement to react to as the mind fumbled for the best. No, the right. No, the most appropriate course of action to take. Andris had similar thoughts.
I summed it up as the best move being to adopt a method whereby I could watch the helicopter at every second of time to make sure I didn’t miss a moment. The right move could have been anything other than what I judged to be the most appropriate; which was coincidentally the same as the best move. It came at a cost though. If I wanted to watch the scene up front I had to consider myself only.
As the battering down draught intensified, the forty gallon drums started shaking where they stood. I applied extra force in my remain standing and leaning position against the drum and grabbed the rim of the drum with my fingers to hold it down.. A sort of a Newtons third law counteractive force. In doing so the drum supported my reaction to lean harder.
Andris on the other hand took a different route. Whilst our minds surely must have computed in a similar way, the answer Andris applied was different. Instead of applying extra pressure to the one thing that was supporting himself, and coincidentally supporting his photographic practice, he chose to loosen his grip. For whatever reason.
This huge force created by the spinning rotor blades felt its way into everything within touch and if anything was not able to counteract it in some way then it was fair game. That’s the laws of physics. Something which in his mind didn’t figure.
I felt the rumbling of the drum. Straining to watch the action at the same time as holding the drum in place. Andris just let go of his drum. The lid from the drum that he had been leaning against took off from underneath the released pressure of his arms. With the full force of negative gravity, due to the suction of the pressure from the winding rotor blades, the lid was fair game. As the lid took off it went vertical. Once the suction released its draw the lid flipped upside down and dropped the entire contents of the water from the inner lid, all of which then landed squarely on Andris and his camera.
He was soaked from top to toe. The lid came clattering down after the water from within it as by then the lid was nothing but a passenger in the turbulent air. It was a bit like flightless frisby.
I must have moved sideways a bit during that moment because when I looked myself up and down I was still dry.
After the clattering of the fallen lid and the noise from the helicopter had all receded, the scene didn’t appear as one of interest to anyone anymore. All those who had turned up to watch then disappeared back to where they came from. There wasn’t a second glance from anyone in our direction. At least we had escaped the embarrassment of looking like a couple of clueless twits.
Andris was quick to hold his camera up for me to see what was now a completely blank screen. ‘Look at it, look at it’ he said. ‘It’s fucked now.
I said in return ‘No, Andris’.
He was insistent and repeated the same words again.
He was right of course. However, there was a positive to be had here. I said ‘You’re right, it is fucked. But it was fucked before, now it’s just completely fucked. But you still get to keep the photos, they’re on a SD card inside.

To keep something up, something has to go down.
When the helicopter has to hover, it has to displace the same weight of air below it as the weight of itself.
When the Bee hovers around plants, the dynamics of the air pressures can be seen as a huge turbulent air mess below it.
The same effect from a slightly different approach.
Oranges and Lemons.