“Never call it a plane, Bader!”

[LIST]
Magnificent Men,
Spirit of St Louis,
Blue Max
Tora, Tora, Tora.
Sound Barrier

My personal opinion was that ‘Top Gun’ was completly ruined by Tom Cruise’s portrayal of a ‘Yob’ fighter pilot. As an air Show documentry, without dialogue good, as a story, Hollywood pastiche.
“I feel the need for speed” Huh!

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”

Any attempt to take rotorcraft much beyond the speeds acieved with the Lynx, are almost certainly going to involve either; Compound helicopter technology (Rotodyne, Cheyanne, Kamov Ka-22, DARPA Heliplane etc) where thrust and/or additional lift is provided to offset the rotor.
or Convertiplanes sucn as Tiltrotors or tiltwings.
and that is what we can see happening now.

Isn’t it great to see some some research being done with technology demonstrators actually flying. I wonder if the Beancounters and Project managers will be able to hold on to their courage, faced with the cost overruns and time delays that will almost inevitably follow.

Getting the whole thing down to a commercially viable and resource sustainable state will be the real challenge.
Who says the thrill has gone from technology, the future for the new generation of engineers is still exciting, be there!

Dave Gibbings reporting for duty.

As you might imagine the loss of Fred was a severe setback,not only because he was a Westland man through and through, but also ‘A total Aviation Person’. Fred was also a bit of a ‘One man band’ (this is not a criticism!), but when they stop playing, you don’t get any music.

The AgustaWestland management are being very co-operative inreviewing the archive Fred built and digitising a lot of it, as you can imagine this is a massive undertaking.

I as an ex Fairey man have to struggle to get to grips with the pre-war management background of Westland, but I am sure that it will all surface in due course.

To bring this thread back on line. The three Harborough Press books (Bristol, Miles and Westland) along with Putnam, in my opinion set a standard for reference which few others achieve.

Fred always claimed there was an edition of the Westland book that included the Welkin. I have never seen it, does anyone out there have one!

In the meantime I intend to print out this thread for reference, and include it in the archive, for which I suspect will not be complete for some time. My aim is to have a worthwhile facility by 2015 (100years of Westland).

Message to admin: I hope I have not wandered from the thread too far.

I would be interested in good quality photographs and a statement detailing he restoration project for this aircraft, for the record to be included in the Westland Archive.