Xtiff....Wessex HAS1 ...."Transition controlled by Hover Coupler with Rad Alt and Doppler inputs until Hover point" .... unless one was in the Far East at night (often hot, humid, no wind, flat calm sea, no horizon and pitch black) in which case the automatic transitions were useless and the aircraft had to be hand flown. The bar alt was used in transit but the dipping procedure was to wind down the rad alt height from 125' initially to 70' and then 35' whilst decelerating on instruments to achieve what one hoped was the hover attitude (a couple of degrees nose up and two to three degrees left wing down) meanwhile the co-pilot looked back in the hope of seeing the downwash in the light from the nav lights, once it had caught up the downwash could provide some Doppler return. It was not unusual to discover that at least on the first transition the hover had not been achieved and now just which way was the aircraft moving (left, right, backwards?) and often whist pulling max continuous engine power! On a hot black calm night it was quite a relief to get into the 30' Doppler hover and then get the ball out to establish the cable hover before another manual transition up to another jump at 90kts and 125' and then going through the whole procedure again.
By comparison the Wessex 3 was a dream with its reliable transition modes and superior rad alt and Doppler. The Seaking system was not anything like as good but the aircraft had two engines .... and therefore twice the chance of an engine failure? That happened to me, survived the single engine Wessex only to ditch in a SeaKing. I thought the Wessex 3 was just great!
(Ex 814 Wessex 1 & 3, County class DLG Mk3, and 824 Seaking HAS1)
Last edited by 76fan; 9th Jan 2017 at 12:43.