International Helicopter Museum

A Lynx passed through Duxford a couple of weeks ago and chatting to the crew they said it was over 30 years old and going in to retirement. I guess that’s a good reflection on the maintenance teams that looked after it. They were also looking forward to the Wildcat so the Lynx family can’t be all bad.

Last week I made my first visit to the International Helicopter Museum in Weston-super-mare and I have to say how impressed I was with it – not overly commercial environment and some interesting aircraft on display – attached to this post are some pictures from the trip.

However during the visit a couple of questions occurred to me:
1. Why is it that Lynx 3 wasn’t a success – was it because there was a concern as to the power output cability of the Gem engine?
2. One of the attached pictures shows a model that is allegedly representative of 1985 Westland attack helicopter – can anyone point me in the direction of any further information about this helicopter?

Apologies for the quality of the images, they were taken on a mobile phone rather than a proper camera.

At risk of answering my own question – is it possible that this model represents one of the variants that were studied during the work on the Tonal programme – which as i understand was a cross European effort to create an anti tank helicopter based upon the Agusta A129? I believe that from a UK perspective the British Army always wanted the Apache, and that given that Tonal programme was happening about the same time as the Westland crisis I suspect this is why the programme died a death.

Its intersting to see the comments about Westland 30 and maintenance etc.

Also intrigued to see the comment about alot of Lynx variants that didn’t progress anywhere – and I’m intrigued to hear more about these, as to the best of my knowledge the only key variant that didn’t progress was Lynx 3 – and I’l still trying to understand what was so wrong with Lynx 3 that it didn’t progress – Westland must have thought there was some chance for sale to go to the cost of producing a prototype – just seems that it was left to whither and die and its not clear to me as to why?

Are there any good referecnce books for the Westland Lynx that people could point me in the direction of?

Cheers

the lynx was over maintained due to the fact that the Mod drives such things . the Merlin is only now getting down to the levels of scheduled servicing that it should of had from the start, but this is driven by cost. The message is getting through the JSF will have no servicing other than AF/BF/TRS. I have spent many years on Lynx and it required far less work than a Sea King to keep serviceable and was easier to work on .

Clearly, you never worked on the Lynx or any of the derivatives.
RB

Clearly you’re correct. Rather rare in my part of the world. 🙂
Still, the military variants have a respectable export list so I assumed they weren’t THAT bad.
But given that you’d expect a civil variant…and I guess the WG 30 case shows the trouble with the type.

But no helicopter is ever going to win an economy award.

I visited the IHM around 12 years ago and was very impressed, particularly with the very high standard of restoration work, and would urge anyone who has never been there to do so.

Various versions of the Lynx did not meet with success…that may be an understatement. I’d like to know why as well.
Witness the WG 30 “heli-airliner” (my word not Westland’s).

I’d lie to know why it failed. Many years ago, I visited the Beccles heliport and was shown a couple of fairly new airframes withdrawn from service. the same thing happened with the Los Angeles helicopter airways examples.

It seems a shame to withdraw nearly new aircraft, so there must have been something wrong with them.

Clearly, you never worked on the Lynx or any of the derivatives. Over-engineered requiring over-maintaining. Civil operators cannot afford 17 – 20 maintenance man hours / flying hour.

I am still astounded that the MoD has signed up to another 30 years of purgatory with the Wildcat (a.k.a. Lynx).

But back on thread – the IHM is a great place to visit (and features three aircraft I worked on).

RB

Thanks for that….there looks to be a good article in the WG 30 saga.
Just looking at it, I always thought the aircraft had potential…as the AW 139 and S-92 has proved the concept for a medium-size civil ship.

Interesting insights to the WG30 here: http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-65254.html

Various versions of the Lynx did not meet with success…that may be an understatement. I’d like to know why as well.
Witness the WG 30 “heli-airliner” (my word not Westland’s).

I’d lie to know why it failed. Many years ago, I visited the Beccles heliport and was shown a couple of fairly new airframes withdrawn from service. the same thing happened with the Los Angeles helicopter airways examples.

It seems a shame to withdraw nearly new aircraft, so there must have been something wrong with them.
Yes, the IHM is a wonderful place…it’s a shame helicopters don’t get more attention, especially from aviation buffs. They’re often met with disdain on this forum.