Wessex V Sea King
 

Sorry if this has been asked before, was watching Highland Emergency on CH5 and was wondering whther the Wessex was better in the mountains than the Sea King.

Can you be a little more precise?

As an SAR platform in the mountains which was the better of the two?

Sea King - Bags more power....

No Wessex...Better winch position

No Sea King....Bigger cabin.....

No Wessex....:eek::eek::eek:

Nah, the Whirlwind beats them both, hands down :ok:

No way!

Belvedere every time...

AdLib
 

Cor' crikey - Belvedere? :eek: :) I have no idea how good or useful the Belvedere was, but I can't help wondering why they never tried turbine engines in it? And how good would it have been if they had? Always thought it was a good looking beast. I thought the Sycamore was nice too. :ok:

Roger.

Psst - Landroger: Belvedere = same engine(s) as Wessie 1 & 3, ie Napier Gazelle. Turboshaft, which I'm pretty sure uses a turbine, no?

Anyway, any fule kno that an AB205 beats any Wessex in the mountains any day. And my little Bolkow these days ain't too bad - pity it can't lift much more than half a verbal message when compared to my luvverly Chinook.

Don't know which was best, but I DO know which I'd have rather flown - after carrying out a joint search around Buchaille Etive Mor with Rescue 134, he shut down at dusk and went to the pub with the MRT whilst we in R137 carried on in the dark! Probably why the civvy MRTs always seemed to get on better with the Wessex crews......:(

I once saw a Wessex fly into HMS Goldcrest whilst I was stationed there.

I've been in a Sea King.

Thud and Blunder
 

Whoops! So memory is probably playing tricks then Thud? I have this memory image of, on probably the only time I saw a Belvedere in the flesh, the clatter of reciprocating radial? Not so at all? Thanks for the pointer though and thanks too to Data-Lynx for the picture and additional info. :)

So, did anyone ever fly one and were they any good? I believe they were used in Burma?

Roger.

Not Burma, Borneo, during the confrontation with Indonesia in the sixties.

But Belvedere got cancelled coz it cost too much....:E

Eck, where's me jacket...

Ah, your thinking of Project Belvedere which didn't get cancelled - They just changed the name. The project is alive and well and working hard to try and fit a square peg into a round hole.

gotta be the 'king...it didn't ruin my back...

Thanks VV, I was aware of Project Belvedere and all that bull.
I guess the new name's Project Catara II, using the criteria that you provided.
I don't know much about the old Belvedere other than it may have been the original Wokka. Back to thread though, surely the King out performs the Wessex but I'm no expert so I'll just keep reading.

After two tours on Wessex SRT (I wasn't good enough for SAR), I won't hear a bad word about the old girl. Having said that, I'd have jumped at the chance to have a go at the Sea King.

I don't know about the flying aspect other than doing air tests but, I did prefer working on the old wessex lovely old lady. both in cyprus and NI. Remember travelling around scotland and landing in a hotel car park to stop for a lovely venison stew, the car park was too small for a Sea King so the wessex wins on the eating out front too!

A good question!

Having flown both extensively in the mountains and also lots of SAR with the Wessex 5, the Wessex wins on power by a country mile. Effectively the same engines as the Seaking but far less weight. You could not see much out of the Wessex and the Seaking was like sitting in a conservatory by comparison –but – you sat very nearly over the winch in the Wessex so that positioning the hook with whatever was on it was very quick and simple. You could also pop the mainwheel of a Wessex on an outcrop and let people hop in and out! (Remember to have the brakes on!)

Once you come to finding where you were going to, the SK was in a different league. More radios than Currys and TANS et all. With the Wessex, lots of flailing maps and reading of road signs.

In turbulence the SK always felt as though it was going to come apart, (frame 290 probably!), but the Wessex always felt so tough and had an amazingly strong undercarriage for banging it onto the ground.

When watching the Coastguard S61s on the telly they often seem to be very short on power and are concerned to be in a position where an engine failure won’t dump them in the oggin. With the Wessex some people did not even notice when one engined stopped!

At the end of the day I always felt that the Wessex was much more sturdy and FUN to fly – but I suspect the SK has the edge technology wise to do a better job.

Now if you had asked about the Whirlwind 9………………………….

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l..._Mountains.jpg