HAI tells ANN that another major presence in the helo world has
gone west. Alan Edgar Bristow passed away April 26, 2009. Bristow,
a former chief executive of British United Airways was the founder
of one of the world's largest helicopter companies, Bristow
Helicopters, where he served as managing director and then chairman
from 1954 to 1985.
An astute businessman, test pilot, and helicopter pioneer,
Bristow was loyal and generous to his employees. His helicopters
played an important role in the development of North Sea oil and
operated in nearly every country in the world.
Bristow was born in Balham, South London, in 1923, and was
brought up in Bermuda where his father, Sydney, was in charge of
the naval dockyard. Young Alan later moved to Portsmouth, England,
and attended Portsmouth Grammar School.
After the Second World War broke out on his 16th birthday,
Bristow joined the British India Steamship Company as a deck
officer cadet. He was sunk twice, once aboard the SS Malda by
Japanese warships, and again aboard the SS Hatarana by the German
submarine U214 while off the Azores. In 1944 he joined the Fleet
Air Arm, graduating in the top four of his pilot training course.
Bristow was sent to America, where he became the first Briton to
learn to fly the Sikorsky R4 helicopter.
Bristow was hired as Westland Aircraft Company's first
helicopter test pilot in 1947. He later moved to Paris, were he
managed and flew a helicopter operation that included flying up and
down the Seine with a pair of circus trapeze artists tethered
beneath his helicopter. Later, after founding Bristow Helicopters,
Bristow was convinced that North Sea gas and oil exploration was a
direction the company should embrace, and it proved to be a
profitable decision. In 1968 he took over as chief executive of
British United Airways and restored it to profitability, before
selling it to Caledonian Airways three years later and returning to
Bristow Helicopters.
After his departure from the company, Bristow Helicopters passed
through several hands before being bought out by an American
multinational company, Offshore Logistics Inc., which retained the
original founder's name when they changed the company name to the
Bristow Group. The company remains a significant player in the
helicopter world.
Bristow was an inventor and innovator. He built a rapid transit
vehicle for town centers in the late 1980s, and won the Duke of
Edinburgh's Award for Agricultural Innovation.
During his lifetime he received many awards and honors,
including the Order of the British Empire in 1966 for his
contribution and services to aviation, and Croix de Guerre in 1950
for rescuing four wounded French Foreign Legion soldiers in
Indochina, under mortar fire. He had moved to Indochina in 1949, in
an effort to interest the French Air Force in buying Hiller
Helicopters to evacuate their wounded. Bristow was also elected a
Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1967.
Bristow is survived by his wife, Heather, and a son from his first
marriage. A daughter of his first marriage, and his first wife,
predeceased him. Bristow was 85.
FMI: www.bristowgroup.com