Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

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FD2
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Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#1 Post by FD2 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:29 am

The long awaited Haynes 'manual' about the Wessex has been published. Anyone interested can buy a copy through the usual suspects - Amazon, Book Depository or direct from Haynes.

Lee Howard has made a really good job of a complicated task, to cover all aspects and marks of the machine from the R.N. Mark 1 through to the civil Mark 60. It's definitely one for the bookshelf of anyone that has flown the Wessex or is interested in the development of what was a big player in the UK helicopter field. :-bd

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#2 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:00 am

I see the price has dropped from the pre-order price of £27.74 in January to £15.84 now at Amazon. I shall order it today. Pity about the abominable illustration of the 195 sonar on the Mk3 on the cover but Lee says it was the only detailed cutaway of the Wessex he could source.
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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#3 Post by Cacophonix » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:01 am

I love the Haynes manual series and technical drawings and the like generally and am going to purchase the manual FD2 recommends for love of the drawings and interest in the aircraft itself.

Having been drawn to the idea of helicopters recently (a madness that I blame FD2 and C16 for just a little) I thought I might do a little more to understand the aerodynamics of these beasts and purchased the following...
Basic Helicopter Aerodynamics.JPG
Basic Helicopter Aerodynamics.JPG (33.27 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
Which is fascinating and includes good stuff like this...
BHA1.JPG
BHA1.JPG (27.79 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
but then dives into mathematics like this which I can follow...
BHA2.JPG
BHA2.JPG (42.11 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
but then the going gets really heavy...
BHA3.JPG
BHA3.JPG (43.52 KiB) Viewed 1035 times
And suddenly I am having to remember maths I haven't touched in a long, long time... so progress is miniscule...

Edited to say the Haynes has been purchased and the regular row with the beloved tomorrow will run...

MBH - "why do you purchase all this rubbish and where do expect to put it, all the book shelves are full...?"

Me - "because it is my interest and no you can't remove the Vulcan Haynes manual I bought last year..."

What a Sad Sack I am eh! :)

=))

Caco

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#4 Post by FD2 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 7:47 pm

:-o Did we ever go into it at that depth C16? Maybe we did but it's too long ago to remember! :YMPARTY:

Agree about the sonar C16 - Lee has been beating himself up about that over the last few days but I think you'll enjoy the contents.

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#5 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Apr 14, 2018 8:04 pm

Caco, did you get the V Force operations manual? Some of my work is published therein.

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#6 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:31 pm

FD2 wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 7:47 pm
:-o Did we ever go into it at that depth C16? Maybe we did but it's too long ago to remember! :YMPARTY:

Agree about the sonar C16 - Lee has been beating himself up about that over the last few days but I think you'll enjoy the contents.
I'm sure we didn't go into those depths FD2 - I could never understand that stuff so that's why I quit A Level Pure and Applied Maths and joined the RN! Helicopter aerodynamics even in the mid 60's were a source of debate. I remember one helicopter aerodynamics lecture as a basic stude in 705 in 1964 where the instructor explained the theory of something or other - maybe the old chestnut of gyroscopic precession on helicopter rotors. Our instructor for the next lecture on the subject was Terry Macdonald. He asked us to explain what we had learned from the previous lecture. His reply was "Well, I don't agree with that, my theory is this....".

Great bloke, Terry Macdonald - ex-RAF, ex-BEA, then joined the RN to fly helicopters and when he left he became the demonstration pilot in Europe for the Hiller FH-1100 helicopter. He was sadly killed at the Paris Air Show in 1969 doing a display when it looked as though something broke and he lost control. Unlike some others I don't think it was mast bumping. There is a video if anyone wants to search for it but I won't post it here.

The Hiller 1100 was a competitor with the Bell JetRanger and Hughes 500 as all three were beginning to make their mark at that time in the civil world after the US military LOH competition. This accident effectively meant the 1100 was only sold in small numbers in Europe.
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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#7 Post by Cacophonix » Sun Apr 15, 2018 4:48 am

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 8:04 pm
Caco, did you get the V Force operations manual? Some of my work is published therein.
Pontius if you mean the Haynes RAF V- Force Operations Manual by Andrew Brookes then yes, that is the Haynes manual I have and very interesting and well compiled, illustrated and written it is too. I am skimming it again and trying to guess as to which might be your material herein, if it is indeed the manual you speak of.

The whole V-force era, mostly before my time of course, being a child in the 60's, represented the apotheosis, I think anyway, of British aviation knowhow and ambition and was also, probably, the last time that the country was truly easily able to project air power on a global scale. Of course such successful power projection was done during the Falklands War but that mission represented a scramble and a glorified fudge, improvise and make do exercise at the cusp of a decline that continues, sadly, to this day.

That the aircraft that constituted the V-Force were interesting at all levels (aesthetically and technologically and no more so than the Vulcan) goes without saying and the fact that many modern standard operational procedures, across the RAF, Fleet Air Arm and even the Army Air Corps, covering many areas, were developed and perfected, ab initio, here in the UK during the 50's and 60's and then adopted by others worldwide (including the SAAF ) should be a source of great pride to the people, like you and the others, here who served, fettled, navigated and flew, and who post here today.

I am privileged to read, listen to and learn from folks such as you all that post here.

Caco

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#8 Post by Cacophonix » Sun Apr 15, 2018 3:49 pm

Yipee the book has arrived (and I got the usual lecture) with an injunction to purchase the books on Kindle! A Haynes manual on Kindle! The woman is mad! =))

Let's see now "'Flying Palm Tree', 'Walter' .... (Walter! Why?)...

Reads on...

Caco

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#9 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:02 pm

Walter - I don't know the answer to that one but seem to recall it was a term used by RAF crews.
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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#10 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Jun 19, 2018 2:45 pm

Caco, correct. The raid maps and the bombing diagrams were mine but the latter wrongly attributed to the draughtsman.

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#11 Post by Cacophonix » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:34 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Tue Jun 19, 2018 2:45 pm
Caco, correct. The raid maps and the bombing diagrams were mine but the latter wrongly attributed to the draughtsman.

I am guessing that you specialised in operations management (along with the navigation skills) and might be rather good at network and flow diagrams (amongst others) and the mathematics and scheduling techniques attached thereto?

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#12 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:40 pm

Sheesh Caco, network was something fisher men's wives would do and never heard the word management in those days. Scheduling techniques, eek, you make it sound almost scientific.

The best trick was matching 33 crews to 24 targets when each crew only covered (had studied) 2 and any 6 of those 33 might be away on leave. We did that exercise every Friday for the following week and in 2.5 years we never failed to match every target with the appropriate crew.

In fact the war documents were brief in the extreme. The crew SOP was 108 pages, the war book about 25, and the operation order for Armagedon was about 10. Anyone who knows military writing will know that many pages are contents lists, amendment status etc.

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#13 Post by Cacophonix » Sat Jun 23, 2018 8:43 am

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:40 pm
Sheesh Caco, network was something fisher men's wives would do and never heard the word management in those days. Scheduling techniques, eek, you make it sound almost scientific.

The best trick was matching 33 crews to 24 targets when each crew only covered (had studied) 2 and any 6 of those 33 might be away on leave. We did that exercise every Friday for the following week and in 2.5 years we never failed to match every target with the appropriate crew.

In fact the war documents were brief in the extreme. The crew SOP was 108 pages, the war book about 25, and the operation order for Armagedon was about 10. Anyone who knows military writing will know that many pages are contents lists, amendment status etc.

QUality not qunatity seems to have been the order of the day given the essential success of the mission overall.

Caco

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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#14 Post by Cacophonix » Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:09 pm

Cacophonix wrote:
Sat Jun 23, 2018 8:43 am
Pontius Navigator wrote:
Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:40 pm
Sheesh Caco, network was something fisher men's wives would do and never heard the word management in those days. Scheduling techniques, eek, you make it sound almost scientific.

The best trick was matching 33 crews to 24 targets when each crew only covered (had studied) 2 and any 6 of those 33 might be away on leave. We did that exercise every Friday for the following week and in 2.5 years we never failed to match every target with the appropriate crew.

In fact the war documents were brief in the extreme. The crew SOP was 108 pages, the war book about 25, and the operation order for Armagedon was about 10. Anyone who knows military writing will know that many pages are contents lists, amendment status etc.

QUality not qunatity seems to have been the order of the day given the essential success of the mission overall.

Caco
One more time from the top "Quality not quantity".... ;)))

Do as I say, not as I do!



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Re: Haynes Manual - Westland Wessex

#15 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Jun 23, 2018 8:20 pm

Our wing once Bolthold to another station. My boss was tasked with writing the operation order to get everyone back to base. He simply wrote 'return to base, bring everything you took in reverse order'. He was told it was too brief.

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