helicopter pioneers

Wessex Mk.5 Royal Navy, Booker 29/9/73

Even at 2.5% inflation thats about £3750 an hour at todays rates, still cheaper than a Vulcan though!

Steve

Can’t see why not? A helicopter is not subject to the same airframe stresses as a fixed-wing aircraft, so as long as you’ve got the spares, it should be able to go on indefinately! It just needs someone with the money and enthusiasm. There is already a lovely former Sabena Sikorsky H-34 flying in German Army colours in Germany(should really be in SABENA colours!) There have also been several Whirlwinds on the civil register( ex Rescue HAR.10, 32 Sqn. HAR.10 and the former Queens Flight HCC12), which makes me wonder why they don’t seem to last long in civil hands as I haven’t seen any of them for a few years now? :confused: Are they too expensive to operate, do the owners run out of spares or do they just get fed up with them?

Back in ’89 I was told that the Wessex cost the RAF £2,500/hr to run, could explain the lack of civvie ones…

First to fly with Turbine Engine??? or last one in RAF Service (Looks like CFS badge on the side).

First to fly with the turbine engine was XJ398 and the last to fly in RAF service was XP345 with 84 Sqn in Cyprus. Both of these historic aircraft are owned by the Yorkshire Helicopter Preservation Group at Doncaster Aeroventure. They still run the Gnome engine in 398 from time to time.

Can’t see why not? A helicopter is not subject to the same airframe stresses as a fixed-wing aircraft, so as long as you’ve got the spares, it should be able to go on indefinately! It just needs someone with the money and enthusiasm. There is already a lovely former Sabena Sikorsky H-34 flying in German Army colours in Germany(should really be in SABENA colours!) There have also been several Whirlwinds on the civil register( ex Rescue HAR.10, 32 Sqn. HAR.10 and the former Queens Flight HCC12), which makes me wonder why they don’t seem to last long in civil hands as I haven’t seen any of them for a few years now? :confused: Are they too expensive to operate, do the owners run out of spares or do they just get fed up with them?

Just Googled the Uraguayan Navy Wessexs – they look super. And it set me thinking would there be any insurmountable barriers to a Wessex being returned to flight and operated in the UK? As it seems that for a chopper she has quite a following. Indeed if it were a civil varient would it be able to do pleasure fllying? all be it one would hope in military colours.

Steve.

A few Wessex pictures from the archive as promised a couple of days ago. Taken on a royal visit to Oxford late 1970 – I can’t imagine now that a scruffy and hairy student (hey, it was 1970, after all!) would be allowed as close as this to a Queens Flight (OK, 32 Sqn, yes I do know it’s changed) aircraft in active use by a royal, or indeed to the royal personage in question.
BTW I’m still a scruffy b*gg*r, I’m told, but I’ve still got all my own hair!

William

The intermeshing rotor concept actually first flew on a 2-seater (3 in a pinch) German design [Flettner FL-282] during WW2… even operating from ships!

As well as the Kaman HH-43 Huskie (illustrated in post 57) MAM also has most of a genuine WW2 Flettner Fl-282 on display at Baginton.

The HH-43, incidentally, actually displayed it’s Rescue capability at at least one Coventry Air Pageant when it was based at USAF Upper Heyford.

Roger Smith.

The AHF’s Scout (XT626) is still airworthy as far as I’m aware, and then there’s the Wasp run by Kennet (?).

I did hear of a wasp being flown in the USA but cannot confirm that.

Roy.

There is a 1/5 share in a Scout for sale in this months Pilot & Loop!

Great Photos Seafuryfan!

The flying obviously was the same sort of stuff (!) The bit that I was never really that happy with was finding those flourescent striped buckets in the mountains by means of heading and timings on RNF – I’d just done 4 years on NVGs and it made the cheeks tighten up a bit.

Anyway, last lot. Sorry about the hairs, I’m sure you can clean them up.

Definately got to be the Wessex and the Whirlwind for me – Are there any Wessexes (Wessi??) preserved from the batch that used to fly from Shawbury?? I grew up near there as a kid and we would regularly be surpriesd by the odd Wessex popping up from behind the hedges surrounding our village (and the Gazelles could give you the odd heart attack when shooting across roads at low level). I know there is one on the gate at the moment there but have any survived for preservation?

Two are operated by the Uruguayan Navy, would you believe?

….anything you can do…..but with ‘conspicuity stripes’! I shot these in Hong Kong in 1980.

More…

Time to get the slides out. These were taken in Hong Kong about ’94.

In the latest copy of ‘Loop’ there is a picture of an ex-Bristows Wessex mounted upside down for an art Exhibition in Salzburg.

The artist, Paoloa Pivi, must have been inspired by the Wessex’s little foible of padding and then flipping over if you tried to run the rotors up through it’s harmonic frequency. 😀

Normally the engine’s are started with the rotor brake on, and then the torque is upped and the brake released, if the Captain is able to count past 4 blades before they blurr, it is power off and brake on immediately 😮

Definately got to be the Wessex and the Whirlwind for me – Are there any Wessexes (Wessi??) preserved from the batch that used to fly from Shawbury?? I grew up near there as a kid and we would regularly be surpriesd by the odd Wessex popping up from behind the hedges surrounding our village (and the Gazelles could give you the odd heart attack when shooting across roads at low level). I know there is one on the gate at the moment there but have any survived for preservation?

One of my favourites was the Lockheed AH56 Cheyenne. Remarkable for so many things, in particular as it was Lockheed’s firts and only foray into rotorcraft

Not really.Lockheed Cl-595 Aerogyro c.1963 (below ) and before that the CL475 of the late 50’s

Westland had a Licensed Private Venture turbine powered prototype based on the CH-37 called the Westminster if memory serves. The project was cancelled when Westland’s took over Fairey and continued with the Rotadyne (Which was then cancelled as well).

It only used the rotor head and gearbox though, it looked nothing like a ’37 Westland redesigned the fuselage to incorporate the engines ahead of the gearbox and the rear fuselage was of tubular construction a la Bell 47

http://avia.russian.ee/helicopters_eng/west_westminster-r.html

One of my favourites was the Lockheed AH56 Cheyenne. Remarkable for so many things, in particular as it was Lockheed’s firts and only foray into rotorcraft and it handled superbly. U.S. Army decided they wanted a smaller chopper (feel the same way :rolleyes: :diablo: ) and began another fly off thta resulted in the Apache.
Shame as thing would have been awesome…!

http://www.internetage.com/cartercopters/pics9.htm

KAMAN… thank you.. i couldent remember the name.. intermeshing rotors.. a interesting design that never really caught on.. Kamovs co-axiel rotor design has been more succesful… though i am suprised no other helicopter builder has produced one…

There are many others who worked with co-axial counter rotating rotors of course around the world, but not so successfully. In early days there was the Berliner Helicopter of 1908, The first Cierva Autogyro in 1922,Pescaro helicopter in Spain in 1924 ,later the Hiller UH-4 in the USA amongst others such as Bensen , culminating in the experimental ABC ( Advancing Blade Concept), of a few years ago. Breguet in France worked with coaxials IIRC amongst many others over the years. Even in U.K. there were the Servotec/Cierva Grasshoppers in the 70’s , the second version of which looked quite promising. They are now museum storage/display in the U.K. and doubtless somebody can produce more information on that particular story.