And no, I’m not just talking about the sheep…

The mist hangs differently in Yorkshire at five in the morning. Not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just thick enough to make you question your eyesight and your life choices in equal measure – especially at 05:00 AM!

Most sensible folk are still in bed. But out on the tops, with only sheep and curlews for company, strange things tend to appear through the gloom.

Over the years on my early morning bike rides I’ve become accustomed to unusual sights. Deer stood motionless in gateways. Barn owls skimming dry stone walls. The occasional fox giving me a look that suggests I’m the intruder in this arrangement.

The other morning I came across a brace of Ferraris parked at one of the well-known viewing spots overlooking the valley. Normally it offers one of the finest vistas in Yorkshire. On this particular day, however, the assembled exotica had chosen exactly the same moment as a proper pea-souper fog to admire approximately three feet of visibility in every direction. Proof perhaps that wealth can buy horsepower, but not necessarily a decent Dales view.

But even that was trumped this week by my latest discovery…

A helicopter.

Not an air ambulance crew heroically attending an emergency. Not a military exercise. Just a completely abandoned helicopter sat in the middle of the wilds like it had simply given up on life. A proper posh thing too — not some tiny hobbyist contraption, but a substantial machine parked awkwardly amongst confused sheep and visibly suspicious rabbits.

No pilot. No passengers. No nearby farmhouse. No support vehicle.

Just a helicopter.

Naturally, this raised several important questions during the remainder of my ride. Chief amongst them – what exactly is the protocol for recovering an abandoned helicopter from a Yorkshire field?

Does the local council stick a parking notice on it?

Do the police arrive with hazard tape and a clipboard?

Is there an aviation equivalent of the AA who turn up muttering “looks like your rotor’s gone mate”?

All week it remained there. Every morning I cycled past it, half expecting somebody to emerge from the fog carrying a flask and explaining they’d just popped off for a bacon sandwich.

Nothing.

Now I once lost my car in a busy retail park for nearly an hour, but I’ve never misplaced a helicopter. Mainly because I don’t own one. Still, the mystery became strangely addictive. What was the back story? Mechanical failure? Weather? Wrong sat-nav instruction? “Turn left at the sheep!?!”

Then finally, on Tuesday after the Bank Holiday, all was revealed.

A slightly later ride saw activity at last. A gentleman with a Transit van was methodically removing the rotor blades whilst a recovery flatbed sat patiently in the corner of the field like this sort of thing happened every day. There was no drama. No urgency. Just calm Yorkshire practicality being applied to a stranded aircraft.

An hour later on my return loop I passed the final scene.

A flashing beacon.

A slow-moving flatbed.

And sat rather sadly upon it, stripped of its blades and dignity, was the now thoroughly dejected helicopter beginning its long journey home.

And honestly, as ridiculous as it sounds, I felt slightly sorry for it and reminded myself that a helicopter purchase needed to be lower on my wish list!

Because even helicopters, it seems, can have a bad week in Yorkshire.