Alan Edgar Bristow, OBE, FRAeS (3 September 1923 – 26 April 2009) founded one of the world's largest helicopter service companies, Bristow Helicopters Ltd, which prospered primarily in the international oil and mineral exploration and extraction industries but also spread into search and rescue, peacekeeping and other fields.[1]
Born in Balham, South London, on 3 September 1923, Alan Bristow was raised first in Bermuda, where his father Sydney was in charge of the Royal Naval Dockyard, and later in Portsmouth, England, when his father was promoted. At Portsmouth Grammar School Bristow was a contemporary of the author James Clavell, who remained a lifelong friend and wrote a book, Whirlwind, about one of Bristow's riskier exploits. In 1940 Bristow joined the British India Steamship Line as a deck officer cadet and twice had ships sunk under him – the SS Malda, by Japanese warships in the Bay of Bengal on 6 April 1942, and the SS Hatarana by the German submarine U214 on 18 August 1942. He was present at the evacuation of Rangoon and the Operation Torch landings in North Africa before joining the Fleet Air Arm as a trainee pilot in 1943.[2] He was trained on the Fairchild Cornell and North American T6 Harvard in Canada before being sent to Floyd Bennet Field in New York in 1944 to learn to fly the Sikorsky R4 helicopter. After demobilisation he joined the Westland Aircraft Company as its first helicopter test pilot, but was sacked for attacking the company's sales manager. As an itinerant helicopter pilot he sprayed crops in France, the Netherlands and North Africa before winning the Croix de Guerre evacuating wounded French soldiers with a Hiller 12A helicopter in Indochina in 1948.[1] He provided helicopter spotting services for Aristotle Onassis's pirate whaling fleet in the Antarctic and later sold helicopters to several whaling fleets before being engaged by the legless former fighter pilot Douglas Bader in 1955 to provide helicopter services to oil exploration platforms in the Persian Gulf.[2] Bristow Helicopters Ltd eventually expanded to cover most of the globe outside Russia and Alaska, with notable profit centres in the British North Sea, Nigeria, Iran, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia. For his services to aviation he was honoured with an OBE in 1966.[1]
With the exception of a three-year period from 1968 to 1971 when he was made Chief Executive of the privately-owned British United Airways, Bristow remained at the helm of the company until 1985, when he was ousted by his major shareholder, Lord Cayzer, who disagreed with his expansion plans. Bristow moved to take over Westland Helicopters and built a majority shareholding during the 'Westland Affair' which led to the resignation from the British government of two Cabinet ministers and came close to toppling Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986. Westland was eventually bought by Sikorsky.[2]
A keen equestrian, Bristow represented Great Britain at four-in-hand carriage driving with the Duke of Edinburgh and used his engineering expertise to develop a driverless urban rapid transit system. He died on 26 April 2009, aged 85.