MBJ,
You've also forgotten the other S55 derivative, the Whirlwind 7. A lovely machine on which to learn to fly
I also flew the S58T and the Wessex, but despite the power of the Wessex, found the S58T nicer to fly because the bifilars made it smoother and it was nice having manual throttle control if required. I also remember the games that ensued when the original nose doors were changed (I think it was as a result of icing on the original Exercise Arctic Express in Northern Norway). Being a Westland product you couldn't just take one off one aircraft and fit it to another; they all had to be individually fitted. I had a friend who worked as a draughtsman for Westland and always remember him only half-jokingly telling me that at Westland everything was manufactured to tolerances of one thousandth of an inch - then filed down so it fitted
I was inclined to believe him when my Westland up-and-over 'Garador' collapsed when I was opening my garage and dented the bonnet of my almost-new Renault 4!
Towards the end of its days in Nigeria the Wessex suffered from shortages of spare parts with long lead times needed for anything ordered. Soon after the loss of a tail rotor (which luckily was brilliantly handled by Richard Sutton and resulted in only very minor injuries) we had some aircraft in Warri flying with no starboard cockpit window because the runners were worn and Bristow were worried about the possibility of a window coming off in flight and damaging the tail rotor. This led to one getting pretty wet when flying during the rainy season and many of our funny blue copy maps getting all soggy and falling apart if not securely sealed inside a plastic cover. I don'tv really remember us having any particular nickname for the Wessex when it was new, but like many others I referred to it latterly as the Queen of the Skies. Haven't flown one now for 28 years, but it would be nice to see how it feels again, with that lovely polished wooden handle on the collective.