Mysteryship

[sycamore]

Try this one,http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/photos/pprune/icing%205%20cheyenne.jpg (http://)

who, what ,where,when??

[Spot 4]

Lockheed Cheyanne

Contender for the Apache, or rather the looser!

[Spot 4]

Cold weather trial rig in the foreground, at about that time there was a similar helicopter named Blackhawk, but not the UH60 that the RAF should have bought years ago.
http://www.hubschraubermuseum.de/Hubschraubermuseum_Buckeburg/Archiv/Lockheed/Lockheed_AH-56A_Cheyenne/AH-56A_00.JPG

[hairyclameater]

Cheyenne and original Blackhawk both way before the Apache!!!

Dont think either were in any kind of competion with other types.Cheyenne was a truly awesome machine that was yet another victim of political manouvering v military requirements

Blackhwak programme died (quite literally) after the protoype crashed at Farnborough in '74.

[sycamore]

Sorry ,guys, had to do the "looking into windows" course today.... otherwise!
Yes, it is the AH-56A Cheyenne; this was taken in Ottawa when it was doing its initial icing trials, flown by Don Segner, CTP, Lockheed.. in early 1969. Tried to get a ride but he wouldn`t swap for a trip in a WX.!It was a rigid rotor design with a combined pusher and t/r. The gunner sat on a rotatable seat and slew the guns; it also had early Flir.,and other early sensors.The last prototype had a downward firing ejection seat for the gunner. It could do 250 kts in a shallow dive, and pull about 3G; and to slow down the pusher was reversed, keeping the fuselage level- very advantageous in tactical mode. It was way ahead of it`s time as a gunship; it did have handling problems initially but they got sorted, only for the US Army to change the goalposts; on another pitch!Pity really as it would be in Service still, with all modern technology, a pretty formidable fighting machine.