When one says Wessex, people normally refer to the twin engined variety known as the Wessex Mk5 in the Royal Navy. ( Can't really say what the RAF did! )
With a huge 350 hours under the belt, I had the pleasure of being at the tail end of the IFTU in 1963 or so. The Wessex was flown for 24 hours a day for weeks on end. If the weather was bad, we just hovered at 5 ft for hours. This got a lot of bugs ironed out. In 1964 848 Squadron flew the Wessex in both the Farnborough and Biggin Hill air shows with great success.
We then went to Aden and Kenya on HMS Albion and found the machine behaved well in hot high conditions. After that to the Far East to swap over with a Wessex Mk1 squadron. The Mk 5 had incredible single engine performance and a very reliable and capable auto pilot for that time. The transmission was limited to 3200 lbs of torque and 1 engine could put out up to 2950 lbs, so it had to be very hot and/or high to make much difference. Hence we had no cat A problems. On 1 occasion in Brunei, I had to pick up 9 paras with all their gear from out of a jungle clearing. Only 1 engine would start, so off we went hoping the other would start once airborne. It didn't, so we picked up all 9 with out any problems. On another occasion I had to pick up 22 rangers, no problem.
The 5 was slow, about 90 to 100 kts, tough as hell, very reliable, forgiving of stupid pilots and simply a delight to fly. Yes there were some fatal accidents but in general most were due to finger trouble by either pilot or engineer. The other 7 twins I have flown still do not have that power to weight ratio.
A much loved helicopter that is virtually no more.
