RED ARROWS 1ST SQUADRON LEADERS FLYING HELMET - ATTRIBUTED

A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO OBTAIN A GENUINE & SUPERB (RED ARROWS) Mk2 "BONE DOME".

Flown during the 1970-71 display season in the Folland Gnat aircraft then used by the team.

The helmet is attributed to the Late-Great Squadron Leader 'Bill Loverseed" Team Leader of The Red Arrows 1970-1971.
The helmet is in well used condition with plenty of knocks and scrapes having for many years been used as an RAF recruiting 'tool' in various places and at various air shows and displays. It was finally sold off as a charitable donation many years ago. The visor screws at left end of the visor need replacing but overall the helmet is clean and complete having had the normal "interservice green" inner electrical and webbing conversion and general mod' common to 99% of all operational helmets of the period. All "white" RAF Mk2 helmets are very scarce and seldom seen for sale at all. Used also on many of the types being flown at the time such as The Lightning, Vulcan and the Phantom etc.

Raymond Eric William Loverseed was born on an RAF base in Egypt in 1932. Bill joined the RAF in 1952,[17] and flew with the Red Arrows in their first year, 1965, and also in 1970.[18] He took command of the Red Arrows in 1971 after the previous leader, Dennis Hazell, broke his leg after ejecting due to an engine failure in practice in November 1970. Four Red Arrows' pilots were killed in an accident at RAF Kemble in January 1971, when two planes carrying two men each collided in mid-air. Bill Loverseed was promoted to Squadron Leader in July 1971,[19] but resigned his commission in May 1972.[17] He married four times. He flew a Buffalo transport plane that crash-landed at the Farnborough Air Show in 1984, and a Piper Cherokee aircraft that suffered severe icing and crashed in Newfoundland in 1987. He died in 1998, on a Dash 7 that he was piloting on a test flight over Devon.[20]

A WONDERFUL ITEM OF GREAT HISTORICAL INTEREST
( Much sought after I will guarantee that you will not see anything like this again in a hurry !) .
C/w it's carry case.

Code: 54733