Steady on there Bager………The W30 was a failure and there was a tail rotor failure on one machine as well as a couple of pilot failures,but nothing major and certainly no tail boom failure. The real problem was that the Lynx dynamic system and Gem engines were not tuned for civil transport operations and the aircraft suffered from a lack of range/ endurance and power.There was also a vibration issue,although not unique then or now to some civil helicopters.
The ultimate version,the Series 300 , with GE CT7 engines and a five blade main rotor overcame the worst problems but too late for Westland which ran out of money. Pity because the cabin was indeed well sized.
Incidentally if you look at the picture of the Airspur machine at Norwich it has a fake tail boom.The real one was scrapped before the aircraft was shipped back from the US for spares recovery.
If anyone knows what happened to the ones previously stored near Redhill and at Biggin Hill ,that were last seen on the M4 heading west I would be interested to know. The rumour at the time was that they were going to be used as simulators for offshore training in Malaysia after being cleaned up in a warehouse in Tewkesbury but were they .They just seem to have vanished!

Pilot John Morton retired to New Zealand and was interviewed only a few weeks ago for The Helicopter Museum. Chief Pilot Ron Gellatly passed away quite a few years ago.
In terms of modern day use, look outside Europe to countries with less well developed ground transport networks in Africa,South America and South East Asia where sophisticated airports may also not exist.And look offshore too,where new oil and gas exploration is moving beyond the economic range and reasonable travel time of helicopters .this is where a modern day Rotodyne would sell,as will a commercial tilt rotor eventually. Compound helicopters like this will be the only answer,why else is Eurocopter/Airbus developing a future commercial scaled up X3 ?

The last surviving parts…head…cabin section…blade and test tip jets are at The Helicopter Museum today where researchers still come to investigate the technology for modern day applications.
It was indeed ahead of its time but the noise issue was cracked by the time of cancellation and anyway over rated as the tip jets were only powered for a very brief period during takeoff and landing.As has been said above ,what killed it was competition with the Belvedere,which had a MoD order, and the cancellation of government investment. Today the same principle using much lighter composite materials and more efficient engines could still prove a winner and similar compound designs are well advanced in the US …..
A fleet of modern day Rotodynes might negate the need for a third London HR runway too…..if only the authorities could realise that VTOL aircraft don’t need to take up scarce runway slots !