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C16 will no doubt know what this is.

The bloke in the picture is my cousin.

Caco

It's an early mark of Whirlwind and with that colour scheme would hazard a guess at a HAR Mk21 or HAS Mk22. Also a Wasp to its left.

CharlieOneSix wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:13 am

It's an early mark of Whirlwind and with that colour scheme would hazard a guess at a HAR Mk21 or HAS Mk22. Also a Wasp to its left.

The Wasp was based at Ysterplaat. My cousin was visiting the airfield which is still an active base, the Wasp's are now part of the museum as is the Whirlwind. Thank you for determining the mystery craft for me!
http://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforc ... p-has-mk-1

Caco

Some snippets about the Wasp. In autorotation it's like a brick built shithouse. The flare at the bottom of the auto for an engine off landing is quite horrendous - I forget now what it was. The undercarriage consisted of four wheels which could be locked fore and aft or at an angle. On a frigate, with the wheels at 45 degrees you could swivel the helicopter on deck by application of pedal thrust. The undercarriage design was quite incredible - you could throw the helicopter at the frigate's deck and it would stick and not bounce. You then applied negative pitch to the main rotor blades to keep the machine on the deck until the deck crew lashed you to it.

The Wasp had no brakes so for land operations the rear two wheels remained canted at an angle and the forward wheels were positioned fore and aft. Practice engine off landings were done in that configuration and - again if I remember correctly as it's a looong time ago - the rear tyres had to be changed after 9 EOL's. A fun machine!

Some aircraft will be fitted with suction pads instead of wheels.....

...and more nostalgia re the Whirlwind. During RN flying training in the mid 60's, after the Hiller 12E we progressed to the Whirlwind. Both the HAS7 and the HAR3 were used. With the HAS7 you could merely close the throttle to idle for a practice engine off landing. With the HAR3 you had to completely shut the engine down or else it would accelerate when you raised the collective to cushion the landing. So it follows that you had to be very very sure of where you were going to end up before you committed yourself in a HAR3.

The HAS7 engine was notoriously unreliable. The sea floor off Portland Naval Base is littered with them, so much so that when one ditched one day a diver was subsequently sent down to assess the possibility of recovery. He soon popped back to the surface and said "Which one do you want - there's three of them down there?"

CharlieOneSix wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:31 pm

Some snippets about the Wasp. In autorotation it's like a brick built shithouse. The flare at the bottom of the auto for an engine off landing is quite horrendous - I forget now what it was. The undercarriage consisted of four wheels which could be locked fore and aft or at an angle. On a frigate, with the wheels at 45 degrees you could swivel the helicopter on deck by application of pedal thrust. The undercarriage design was quite incredible - you could throw the helicopter at the frigate's deck and it would stick and not bounce. You then applied negative pitch to the main rotor blades to keep the machine on the deck until the deck crew lashed you to it.

The Wasp had no brakes so for land operations the rear two wheels remained canted at an angle and the forward wheels were positioned fore and aft. Practice engine off landings were done in that configuration and - again if I remember correctly as it's a looong time ago - the rear tyres had to be changed after 9 EOL's. A fun machine!

Some aircraft will be fitted with suction pads instead of wheels.....

Fascinating gen C16. My earliest memory of seeing the Wasp in action was when I cycled from my home in Rondebosch down to Ysterplaat (about 10 miles) and was sitting with my nose pressed up against the security fence when the Station Commander walked up and asked if we would like to come in and watch the Squadron practice for a display. As you can imagine my cup of joy ran over.

Caco

CharlieOneSix wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:13 am

It's an early mark of Whirlwind and with that colour scheme would hazard a guess at a HAR Mk21 or HAS Mk22. Also a Wasp to its left.

How on Earth did you identify the aircraft on the left?

Interesting reading, thankyou.

Mrs Ex-Ascot wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:30 pm

......How on Earth did you identify the aircraft on the left?......

It’s a unique undercarriage - you can see one set of wheels canted at an angle plus the bit sticking out high up is the unique set up for a Wasp emergency flotation gear. The RN operated them as well as the South Africans and I was RN in that era so......

Spotted in my peregrinations this week...

I went to the museum at Weston a year or so ago. There, in all its original glory, was Aerospatial Super Puma (Tiger) 332L GTIGE.

That was used almost solely on contract to Marathon Oil Co who found and developed the Brae oilfield in the North Sea and I must have clocked up hundreds of hours on it. The Brae was about 140 n.m. out and a round trip was about 2hrs. 30m.. Rotors running refuel and passenger change then off for another. Then a crew change and then a couple more trips.

For a long time GTIGE was the lead Super Puma in the world for the number of hours it was clocking up.

Sent to me by Chief Helicopter Pilot friend who enjoys pointing out to me what a great job he has... (I can only agree)...

Nice pictures particularly the one on the ground.

Brought to you courtesy of the Navy Wings Bulletin... feel free to give these guys a donation some time...

As many of us are finding that we have a little more time on our hands, we have asked the pilots of Navy Wings to share some of their stories. Believe us, they have a few! First up is our CEO Jock Alexander and his tale of the Runaway Sea King.

The Runaway Sea King – almost a disaster![/quote]

The story here...

Not as embarrassing as an Army Air Corps Major.

One of his minions had landed his Scout next to a company in the mountains of Northern Norway in the middle of winter. He shut down, got out to talk to the chaps on the ground and the aircraft immediately decided go skiing, backwards. It slid down the hill and crumpled into a snow bank.

The CO was not too pleased so he jumped into another Scout and flew to the scene of the incident. He shut his aircraft down and proceeded to bollock his minion when his attention was diverted by the scene of his Scout sliding down the hill.

Into the other one.

Reminds me of the story, probably apocryphal, of the Gazelle delivering a high ranking pongo to the Officer's Mess at Gutersloh just before handing it over to the Army.
Rather than use the acres of asphalt and concrete available a few hundred yards away, the chopper was landed in the tennis courts adjacent to the Mess. It being winter, the nets were stored.

Apparently it took a good 20 minutes to find the keys to let them out of the courts.

CharlieOneSix wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:31 pm

Some snippets about the Wasp. In autorotation it's like a brick built shithouse. The flare at the bottom of the auto for an engine off landing is quite horrendous - I forget now what it was.

Samesame Scout, I guess (not having flown either type).

Here's a bit of video of a Scout, in the hands of a young Navy pilot, doing autos.



The bugger's a conjurer. He makes it look easy, though I'm quite certain that it's not!

That whole video, by the way, is worth a squint. I'm amazed at how many types they had in-house, and otherwise available for jollies, at Boscombe for that Course in those days (mid-1990s).

larsssnowpharter wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:25 pm

Reminds me of the story, probably apocryphal, of the Gazelle delivering a high ranking pongo to the Officer's Mess at Gutersloh just before handing it over to the Army.
Rather than use the acres of asphalt and concrete available a few hundred yards away, the chopper was landed in the tennis courts adjacent to the Mess. It being winter, the nets were stored.

Apparently it took a good 20 minutes to find the keys to let them out of the courts.

Reminds me of a incident in PNG,pilot carrying out a vertical landing into a bush pad,blades clip a branch on descent.On landing blade inspected and damage found.Pilot calls base and asks for an engineer to come out to inspect,he then starts and repositions the Bell 47 so as to allow sufficient room for the other 47 to land after he stops and ties down his blades.The 47 with the engineer lands and the pilot keeps the heli running to cool down while the engineer unties the damaged aft blade and inspects ,having inspected that he pushes the aft blade up so he can then go and inspect the fwd blade.Having inspected the blades he spoke to the pilot whom by thus time had just shut down,said that it will require a blade change and sudden stoppage inspection.This pilot who was the base manager thought he was also Gods gift to engineering said bull *****,let me look at it.With great aplomb he walked to the fwd blade and pulled it down and inspected it,ths is ok said he and with gusto spun the blade to bring the aft blade around.The catastrophic noise that ensued when that fwd blade met the blades still rotating on the 47 that hadjust been shut down 30 sec. earlier was some thing to behold.What was one 47 with a fixable problem was now two 47 that had to be slung out in bits and pieces.

An interview with the great Dennis Kenyon...