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

There's only one way to find out........

Continuing with the occasional thread drift towards Belvederes.

Landroger, you may have indeed seen/heard a piston ‘Belvedere’ if it was a prototype. See the link and scroll down about 1/3rd.

Rotors over Churchdown

As an aside - I once flew a Belvedere and I climbed in up a very long ladder and strapped in. The very kind Crab whose steed it was, appeared up his ladder, sat down and said unstrap now and don't strap in until both AVPIN started Gazelles were started satisfactorily. The ladders also remained in place until a fire free start was achieved. Who ever decided to mount two Gazelles facing downwards with the AVPIN starters underneath them clearly had a perverse sense of humour.

The sensation of flying the beast was like being at the front of a flying railway carriage where the rear followed the front rather reluctantly.

Am I wrong in remembering that when I flew a Sycamore that it only had one collective lever, and if you sat in the left hand seat you flew it back to front as it were?

Bast0n, have to agree about the Wessex and engine failures. I had one shut down on me one summer's day. It was hot (for UK), we were near max weight, and had a 105mm howitzer slung underneath. After some thought we decided not to pickle the load but, with both myself and the crewman ready to let it go at any moment, we came happily to the hover, safely put the gun on the ground, moved over a bit and landed. If I recall correctly, back in the seventies, the only helicopter operating on UK oil/gas support with a genuine engine-out capability was the Wessex; it wasn't until the Puma arrived on the scene that the situation changed.

TSTK
 

Well now Shy Knight, I have no idea how old (or young) I was when Dad and 'Uncle Peter' (a work colleague of Dad's) first took me to SBAC Farnborough, but since I can remember trams in Streatham and watching the Coronation on television, it is chronologically possible for me to have witnessed a radial engined Belvedere! :eek:

This is a fascinating thread and I am learning an awful lot about the aeroplanes and helicopters I watched and loved as a kid. I was not at Farnborough when the DH110 went in - as many others claim - but I did see the Olympus test bed Vulcan; the Beverly when it was almost new; the Argosy when it was; the Javelin 'all weather fighter'; and the "helicopter" (?) I really thought would do the business - the Fairy Rotodyne. Very impressive, very big and very noisy. :)

Thanks everyone for your memories.

Roger.

If you `google ` Bristol 173 helicopter,all will be revealed..

bastOn, you are correct,the original Sycamores were flown from the LHS,then later modified for training with a central `L` shaped collective,for the QHI in the lhs to operate with a kack-handed right hand.But then, most QHIs are a bit like that anyway !! Great helo ,once you had mastered the manual controls,mechanical trimmers,C of G compensator,propensity to go into ground resonance,`jump` take-offs,and an ability to do max-rate turns,2-stage amber for I/F......
Anyway, what about the WW Mk9..I flew the trials on XM666 when it was fitted with SS11s....recall it`s on a farm somewhere on E Falklands now...

In the carrier Eagle ,for the Home /Far East/Home commission of 1967-68,we had a whole squadron ,no.820 NAS, of single-engined,Avpin-started Wessex HAS Mk 1. As the name suggests,they were primarily for A/S duties,with their "dipping sonar" and A/S torpedos,but were also used for "planeguard" and "Vertrep" (Vertical Replenishment) duties----all of which is a bit much to ask of a single -engined Helo with known and regularly-occuring gearbox malfunctions ! By the time of the Aden withdrawal,"Vertrepping" all those "Goodies" out of Khormaksar back to the ship, and "Operation Kamaran",the rate of attrition was such that,in order to maintain a creditable and viable "planeguard" prescence,other than using frigates / destroyers, for fixed-wing flying, two Fabulous !!-- Excellent !!-- Wessex Mk 5 twin-engine "Jungly" machines, plus their air & groundcrews,had to be borrowed from HMS Albion.
Sadly,we had to give them back,eventually,and the poor old HAS 1s had their " Un-finest Hour" during NATO Exercise "Silver Tower" in September ,1968,in Arctic waters.By this time,the gearbox situation was so critical that oil-samples were being taken every few hours,and flown ashore to Lossie for analysis ! On one particularly embarrassing occasion,in full view of what appeared to be the whole Soviet "Fishing" Fleet,plus a Kotlin Class Destroyer and,probably, various Soviet submarines,a Wessex gearbox packs up and a Flotation Gear test (successfully) ensues. Jealous of this success, another Wessex,en route to administer aid & succour ,joins in the fun also.Aboard ship,the "Sea Boat's Crew " hurriedly muster (assemble) at their beloved "3-in-1 " whaler,only to find that the engine has thoughtfully been removed.So, Plan B, and they rush off to the other side of the ship, and prepare for deeds of "derring do " in the 25-foot Motor Cutter. In the excitement,however,this boat is released whilst still some height above the water,and there is an ominous "crack!". After travelling for about ten yards,the cutter starts to sink in,under the circumstances,a rather dignified fashion (photo available !) Fortunately,during all this confusion,yet another Wessex is dragged (protesting ?) from the Upper Hangar ; The rotor-blades are spread,the awful,sickly smell of igniting Iso Propyl Nitrate wafts across the flight-deck,and the gearbox remains in one piece,as opposed to thousands,long enough for a whole series of red-faced rescues of Pilots,Observers,Aircrewmen,Divers,Stokers,Seamen et al,to be effected.As far as I know,this was definitely the "end of the line" for the Mk 1 ; But at least it showed that the flotation gear was (but not always !!) highly efficient.Then,in 1969,came the Sea King !! Hooray !!

I always remember the safety briefs for the SK were more in depth when mountain flying. Power, wind blah blah.

Can't remember power being a problem in the Wx V.

As an aside, when we withdrew from Singapore in the early 70's. 848's Wx V's did a 100% fly past. One Helo was cleared for a single engine, one flight only so as to achieve the 100%. Such was the power of the mighty Wessex Mark 5's twin gnomes.

Lead, of course, by the Mighty 826 Vertical Pursuit Sea Kings :ok:

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/1...+Singapore.jpg

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/1...MS+Triumph.jpg

Sycamore Collective
 

baston's right about the Sycamore collective (only one) but it also ran across the cockpit not fore & aft. One needed articulated joints to twist and pull at the same time. In training, there was always a fight between instructor and stude and the poor instructor was flying left handed - so to speak.

The Sycamore also had a habit of running out of cyclic control authority and then over she went. The blades went the other way round as well.

O-D

John

I think you will find that we were following you out of idle curiosity to see if the Seaking flot gear worked! Below was probably you doing the old "Visual Search" procedure as nothing else seemed to work in locating the enemy submarines!!

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...jsf_img460.jpg

Do you remember the Australian 31s tied down to the deck of Melbourne in Hong Kong harbour running for hour after hour to see what was going to break next. Happy days to be in a 5.:)

Bast0n,

Not me Chief: RN only, thanks :ok: And that's a much later SK ditching, 6 blade TR. This was our attempt where the flot gear worked for a few hours:

http://www.eacott.com.au/gallery/d/1...d+inverted.jpg

Now going totally OT, I'm reliably advised that you are still renowned for pink strides?

John

I think your informant is probably not far orrff:ok:

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

Wessex of course with God onboard !!! SAR aircrewman diver:ok: British Pathe - FROGMEN JUMP TO RESCUE

What a shame the SAR diver is no more......

VVV

I had no idea the divers had gone - that really is a retrograde step. Did they ever jump from Seakings?

When the SAR Wessex was U/S: of course ;)

We carried them on Planeguard, and I dropped one in anger from a SK HAS1 :ok:

An aspect of the Wessex that has always intrigued me compared to current generation helicopters is that the CG was presumably much lower, as the engines were mounted well below the rotor plane.

I expect that greatly reduced roll and pitch rates, but presumably it made deck landings easier?

BastOn
Yes they did and we had them at 771 until the end of Mar 2007.

And from Mk 4s at 772