Westland Westminster

I’ve always though the Blackhawk looked more like a Wessex with the engines and cockpit swapped round…
😀
Zeb

Yes, I’ve always thought so…the rear fuselage look just like the S-58/H-34/Wessex.

A bit Blackhawkish?

I’ve always though the Blackhawk looked more like a Wessex with the engines and cockpit swapped round…
😀
Zeb

Just had a look at Westminster entry in David Mondays book on Westland, published by Janes in 1982…

He mentions that the skinning was made of Terylene, specially treated with dope so that it was impervious to the transmission fluid… however he also mentions that the second prototype had a lightweight monocoque airframe designed by SARO at cowes… As I’ve never found any reference to this anywhere else I suspect he might be in error…

Zeb

Oh YES -totally serious- Well before our military noticed that it was a useful item
guess they thought that Westland ‘wooky hole’ would not sell!

The Westland Wiltshire eh.. well i never. At least the Wyvern was named after a mythical, fire breathing, fork tailed dragon… and not a quiet English county just outside Somerset. :rolleyes:

I wonder how the Spitfire would be viewed now if it had been called the Supermarine Shropshire. :p

GAPLE flew unclad
GAPTX flew clad
G-APLE later flew Clad

There has always been doubt about the W& R claims that they ended in a pond

For the sake of completeness I should mention the entry in the 5th edition of W&R (1976) which says: “It would appear that the Westminster remains quoted in W&R IV were of an industrial nature. The machines were buried here, if any diggers want some exercise” ! I’m not sure where the pond came from – unless the quarry at Charlton Mackrell was or became flooded.

Oh YES -totally serious- Well before our military noticed that it was a useful item
guess they thought that Westland ‘wooky hole’ would not sell!

Same reason as S61 was marketed as westland WILTSHIRE

Are you serious.??

Same reason as S61 was marketed as westland WILTSHIRE

Anyone know why they were called ‘Westminster’.?

The rotor systems weren’t off the S-64 Skycrane, rather the earlier S-56…better known as the CH-37 Mojave.
The systems are similar, but since the Westminster flew before the Skycrane
(FF May 1962) they couldn’t have been S-64 units.

The S-56 systems was used on the earlier piston powered Skycrane,
the S-60, but the firm wisely decided to wait and adapt the design to turbine power.

ditto… (ish)… not knowing the dimensions, but truly surprised at the shape/form/layout and its similarity to a certain, later Sikorsky product.

Actually, the rear fuselage and tail rotor pylon lolks like the Mojave which first flew in 1953.
I don’t think there’s a case for implying the Americans “stole” the design… 🙂

Westminster was the dynamic train of S.64 crane. Fairey Rotodyne was funded in 1954 to an RAF Requirement for close-up logistics/insertion, for which later DHC-4 Caribou was also considered. WHL, with Sikorsky loan kit, entered the fray without MoS funding. Twin Pin won; as Judwin says, by 1960 WHL had their hands full, and doubted any civil market (or any that their licence terms from Sikorsky could yield). MoA Aircraft Research funds dripped on for Rotodyne till 1961, responding to US civil interest/Kaman licence; when that all lapsed Fairey’s new owner had other priorities.

(Corrected tks JBoyle – S.56 not S.64 power train)

GAPLE flew unclad
GAPTX flew clad
G-APLE later flew Clad

There has always been doubt about the W& R claims that they ended in a pond

Westland Westminster

It shows what happens when you don’t check details. You are quite right Lee, both aircraft are G-APLE, but I think that was the only one that flew fully clad.
There is a picture of G-APTX in Derek James book, which was of a very similsr girderwork construction, there really could not be any hope of production in that form.
Here is a picture of what I believe is the only occasion when the Rotodyne and Westminster were seen together, at White Waltham for Farnborough 1960 I think.

Memory tells me that the remains of the Westminsters were dumped in a quarry. But I have to confess that my memory is not what it once was. So I had better go and read up on the subject – and then probably post with my apologies for supplying unreliable information!

If that’s thecase I think I should apologise every time I offer any information

A bit Blackhawkish?

ditto… (ish)… not knowing the dimensions, but truly surprised at the shape/form/layout and its similarity to a certain, later Sikorsky product.

A bit Blackhawkish?

Here are photographs of the two Westminsters,

They’re the same aircraft, aren’t they?? G-APLE.

I had to dig deep for this negative. Farnborough 1958.

Mark

Westland Westminster

Here are photographs of the two Westminsters, I don’t think the 2nd one was the definitive stressed skin airframe, simply an aerodynamically representative fabric covering of a similar structure to aircraft 01.
The whole project had a long way to go before it could be declared viable,
and all this when the company was trying to reform, having acquired Bristol, Fairey and Saunders-Roe.

What an awful waste. They looked so impressive flying at Farnborough in the Westland “Circus”,
Jim