tth: why no WS.70? This is complicated so pay attention at the back.
After Falklands UK settled on: retain Puma, add Chinook, buy Merlin. An RAF medium lift transport was mooted and a Lynx derivative, WG30 was schemed. Euro-folk in 1985 were scheming NH90 and Westland joined in, 9/85... precisely as BAe signed Saudi alYamamah (to be:1), which was to include some rotorcraft. But WAL was in parlous financial straits.
(To be) Eurocopter and (UTC) Sikorsky saw WAL as entree to some of the Saudi/BAe. chopperwork, so put up:
- the European Option: full share in NH90 and in antiarmour Agusta TONAL: please wangle current Aerospatiale/Bolkow types into Saudi;
- the US Option: UTC offered licenced WS.70+RTM322...not for RAF, but to a perceived Requirement for 100 for Saudi+Iraq.
After Mrs.Thatcher's Cabinet was shaken by the Westland Affair, in 4/86 UTC(Sikorsky)+FIAT(Agusta) bought 29.9% of WAL, who left the 2 Euro-projects. A prototype WS.70 flew and was pitched to Saudi...but that prospect lapsed in the whirl of embargo and worse surrounding the Iraq/Iran War. Iraq took a bunch of Bolkow Bo.105s; Saudi took 21 US-built H-60. In 1993 UTC's WAL equity passed to GKN. RAF gently built up the Chinook fleet and waited just as patiently for Merlin as France and Germany did for NH90. US-built H-60 was sold to everybody+dog.