Messing about today with the Virtavia Sea King in FSX. Heading out from Manston following the coast of Thanet, west towards Herne Bay, then south to Canterbury, a quick water landing at Fordwich Lakes, then back to Manston again.

There used to be an RAF Rescue base at Manston and I used to see the yellow Sea Kings all the time growing up. The rescue base was shut down in the late 90's after defence cutbacks. More recently the airport was purchased last year by a certain, ahem... "entrepreneur" (for the princely sum of £1) who promised to keep it open as an airport, then promptly closed in May and plans to develop it into a "garden city". This was after our entrepreneur rejected an offer to buy the airport for the full asking price of well over £20m from another company that wanted to keep operating Manston as an airport. There's a great deal of local opposition to the closure and proposed housing development and suggestions of shady deals gone on between the various parties involved and the local government.

#savemanstonairport

I believe Prince William flew the Sea King right? He must really love it too..because I think he continued on with SAR piloting.. Seems like a legit guy..

BeachAV8R

Yeah he used to fly these same aircraft.

There's a little bit of a controversy actually... he's just had over £4m of public money spent on renovating his apartments in Kensington Palace.... only for us to get the news he's now going to move to another royal property in Norfolk.

There's also a suggestion that he perhaps shouldn't be doing this new job. He already gets a wad of public money, and he and his brother inherited a fairly substantial fortune from their mother... so why does he need to be flying helicopters when there may be another pilot out there without his money who might appreciate the job more?

Then of course there's the suggestion that giving his grandmother's growing infirmity, William and his wife need to be taking over a lot more royal engagements than they have been.

But that's all going OT

Eh, let the boys live their lives. They could be some rich kids sitting on their butts doing nothing but partying and being brats, but they both seem pretty well grounded all things considered.
Might as well live helping people directly while they can, when they get older they won't have the options they do now, most likely. It's respectable. I don't think taking up one spot as a pilot does any damage. Work harder to not be the last guy on the list. I'd imagine there's always room for someone that's well enough qualified.

Yeah.. The silver spoon stuff might be more foisted on them than something they really wanted. Both of them seem to have turned out well, and from what I've read William really enjoys the piloting stuff and isn't a patsy at it. Apparently he is quite good. And the other, Harry, seems to have taken his duties in Afghanistan pretty seriously and did a good job. I'm sure it is tough growing up and trying to do military stuff when you are probably surrounded by people who have been told "don't let anything happen to this guy"...

Edit - Of course..it doesn't hurt to have a helicopter given to you..

Heck, anyone that goes and flies helicopter has my respect. Those machines shouldn't fly.

BeachAV8R