27 September 2016
Seventy years ago, on 24 September 1946, pioneering helicopter pilot, Lieutenant Alan Bristow Royal Navy, became the first Britain to land a helicopter on the deck of a naval frigate at sea.
Few would have seen in the flimsy Sikorsky Hoverfly KK969 of those pioneering days the forerunner of the sophisticated naval helicopters of today, or foreseen the significance of that landing as the precursor to every frigate or destroyer in the Royal Navy having an embarked helicopter as an integral part of its weapon system.
