Bob Viking
If your fixed wing ever drops you in the sea, you may be glad of a Helicopter being around.
I have to correct thread 23, the Belvedere was made by Bristol, not Westland. It has a bad reputation, not always justified. If you consider it was the late fifties, and you had a machine that had an AUW of 22,000 Lbs, could maintain altitude on one engine, had a cruise speed of 120 Knots, and a VNE of 140 Knots, (from Memory).
The starter system was high maintenance, but did work ok most of the time. Its an urban myth that some pilots tried to start the aircraft from outside of the cockpit as they were frightened of the starter, that would not be possible, as the rotor brake had to be off to start the aircraft. I flew several hundred hours as a crewman, and I never saw a pilot do this.
I only had one starter explosion on my time, and that was a low key event, I was in the left hand seat when the pilot pressed the button, there was a muted thump from the rear engine, and then the fire warning came on, we exited in an orderly fashion.
The main rotor heads were similar to the Sycamore, and were light weight, and low maintenance.
If you are interested, seek out a Belvedere in a museum, note the flush skin panels, the Shobert riveting, and the doors and window hatches that worked correctly, the build standard was better than either Westland, or Sikorsky could attain.
In my time as a Helicopter Engineer, I flew in about Nine Helicopter types, as Crewman, Flight Test Engineer, or passenger, and I can say that the Belvedere was the smoothest.