WE177 from Sea King!
 

Several decades ago some RN chaps were explaining to a sceptical RAF type (me) how their helicopter was nuclear capable. Imagine my surprise when a trip to Hack Green secret nuclear bunker (well recommended if you're in the Crewe area) reveals this wasn't just dark-blue bar talk.

How did this work in practice and was there any chance of survival for those lucky enough to have been selected for such a mission?

Sea King - meh. A somewhat smaller helicopter was also used…

http://nuclear-weapons.info/images/we177-wasp.jpg

Wessex and wasp wasn't it :)

Cannot see that performing a LABS manoeuvre

Which Optask was it that detailed OSOR\ESOR?

YS

IThe 600 pounder. Quite a load for a Wasp.

Sea King would not have had a survival issue as release speed, yield selection and weapon mode would give safe separation.

A Wasp was a far sportier proposition but still just feasible, they said.

YS, at the time I think it would have been Opgen as Optasks were later. Opgens Romeo and Whiskey strikes a cord.

The 600 pounder. Quite a load for a Wasp.

Having served on Lynx for a short spell with some hairy old Wasp pilots I understood it was a one man job - pilot only, due to weight and that it might involve a swim back!!

I say back to the catapult and slingshot....................

Also, note doors on wasp removed to save weight!

Always wondered how the 2-man principle was enabled in ops with single crewman aircraft.

I think the Optask ASW had the Spec Wpns instruction for standoff ranges etc.

There was also an Optask Nuc, I think.


BEWARE BEWARE. DUSTBIN DUSTBIN.


Happy days.

For those of us who were post-"Nu Labour" and only heard about the WE177 being chopped up, the single man options were considered "post-launch/post-authorisation"??

Anything that could carry a backpack is nuclear capable.

At least the water would be nice and warm.

Operation Swordfish in 1962 saw a 10-20 kT nuclear depth bomb tipped ASROC detonated 198 meters underwater less than 4000 meters from the ship that launched the weapon. The weapon exploded 40 seconds after impacting the water, the resulting spray dome was 3000 ft across and reached a max height of 2100 feet around 16 seconds after detonation. If the helicopter dropping the weapon was already moving at the drop point, it would have very likely outrun any weapons effects that broke the surface.

Well the Jag was 3 man principal right up unto launch then single man crew. So was in effect single man, though in theory they couldn't launch until authorised.

"Dustbin, Dustbin, Dustbin" - "Beware, Beware, Beware!!!"

Those ring a bell. I do recall that it was proposed to include those details in the Optask that never was; the Optask MPA. that would have made life simpler.

YS

Optask MPA? But what would I as an R4 have spent the pre-brief doing if it wasn't trawling through all the other Optasks to get the info we needed ?:p I mean, I couldn't have got the brews in, that was the third Wet's job:E

And wasn't it a PITA to load on SK and Wasp. Only two options were available for use in ASW (DH and DL???) but you had to go through and test every bloody mode including all the fixed wing ones. Took hours.

On the Wasp it was loaded on the diagonal so a physical PITA as well, albeit not much worse than torpedoes.

Lynx was much easier. Only the two options to test and then throw it up on C-type with MACE, pointing forward and all easy to get at.

Never loaded a Wessex.

N