Harry Ridgewell was a design draughtsman on the EH 101 and remembers its maiden flight

It’s a great sense of achievement, it really is. PP1 tail number made her maiden flight on the 9th October 1987. It was just amazing. I think it’s fair to say the whole factory were out there to see this aircraft getting ready to take off. Of course, there had been six to nine months of ground running activity at the far end of the airfield, part of the shaking down and making sure everything, all the systems, worked together as they should do and then of course at what was it, seventeen minutes past three on the afternoon of 9th October 1987 there was fresh air under the wheels. Wow!

How far did it fly? Did it just sort of hover over the airfield?

No. It took off, went into the hover and then did a circuit. That was part of the basic requirement, you know, there are milestones obviously in these big projects to which money is attached when it’s a brand new aircraft, everything about it was brand new I think except the engines. I think the engines were already in existence but everything else about it was a brand new helicopter so it was quite a thrill to see this aircraft take off and come out round, over the town, round the airfield and come back in and think wow, we’ve done it, you know, magic, tremendous.

 

 

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