Identify a Homebuilt?
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 2,584
Likes: 0
From: UK
Identify a Homebuilt?
Back in the '70s there was a homebuilt helicopter displayed outside a car breaker's yard on the road between Shepperton and Lower Sunbury-on-Thames.
It was single seat, two bladed, used a Triumph twin motorbike engine and a Sunbeam S7/8 rear hub featured somewhere in it, I'd originally thought t/r gearbox but it would be far too heavy so maybe m/r gbox, a deck to overhead screen from bent perspex sheet in two or three triangular "gores" and a skeleton or tubular tail boom, so general layout was a bit similar to a Bell 47.
It was in poor state by then and disappeared in the late 70s/very early 80s. I believe it was locally built but never heard if it flew. From it's condition (rotten wooden blades) it must have been built in the 60s or perhaps even earlier.
Anyone know more about it, or what it was, or a resource listing such exotica?
It was single seat, two bladed, used a Triumph twin motorbike engine and a Sunbeam S7/8 rear hub featured somewhere in it, I'd originally thought t/r gearbox but it would be far too heavy so maybe m/r gbox, a deck to overhead screen from bent perspex sheet in two or three triangular "gores" and a skeleton or tubular tail boom, so general layout was a bit similar to a Bell 47.
It was in poor state by then and disappeared in the late 70s/very early 80s. I believe it was locally built but never heard if it flew. From it's condition (rotten wooden blades) it must have been built in the 60s or perhaps even earlier.
Anyone know more about it, or what it was, or a resource listing such exotica?
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 21st December 2010 at 01:08.
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1,796
Likes: 1
From: 1 Dunghill Mansions, Putney
C/o Google, it sounds like one of these: Adams-Wilson Choppy
Edited to say: Looks like bugdevheli beat me to the answer...by over 4 years.
I/C
Edited to say: Looks like bugdevheli beat me to the answer...by over 4 years.
I/C
Last edited by Ian Corrigible; 21st December 2010 at 00:02. Reason: Worked out how to use search function
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 2,584
Likes: 0
From: UK
Adams-Wilson Hobbycopter
And finally a pic of the Sunbury machine to boot!
Ian, I didn't recognise it at all from the much modernised version you posted along with its new name, and especially that box-section tailboom. I had hitherto only found rather poor quality pics of earlier versions known as the AW XH1 Hobbycopter but they still didn't seem to look much like the one I described.
Pleased to see it is pretty much as I remembered it now I see the mechanical layout. I wonder what happened to it.
Thanks for the solution anyway!
The thought trusting your life to that notoriously weak Sunbeam "gearbox" with chain & sprocket drive via Triumph engine, primary drive, clutch and transmission again hardly renowned for reliability makes me shudder. And no overrun clutch - the original spec talks about autorotation via a manually selected lever...what's the betting there's a Triumph clutch lever on the cyclic connected in the usual way. Some hope of achieving the autos that would be required every few minutes when something broke, stripped, melted, siezed, blew up or just fell apart!
Thankfully it doesn't seem that it was ever registered.
And finally a pic of the Sunbury machine to boot!
Ian, I didn't recognise it at all from the much modernised version you posted along with its new name, and especially that box-section tailboom. I had hitherto only found rather poor quality pics of earlier versions known as the AW XH1 Hobbycopter but they still didn't seem to look much like the one I described.
Pleased to see it is pretty much as I remembered it now I see the mechanical layout. I wonder what happened to it.
Thanks for the solution anyway!
The thought trusting your life to that notoriously weak Sunbeam "gearbox" with chain & sprocket drive via Triumph engine, primary drive, clutch and transmission again hardly renowned for reliability makes me shudder. And no overrun clutch - the original spec talks about autorotation via a manually selected lever...what's the betting there's a Triumph clutch lever on the cyclic connected in the usual way. Some hope of achieving the autos that would be required every few minutes when something broke, stripped, melted, siezed, blew up or just fell apart!
Thankfully it doesn't seem that it was ever registered.
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 21st December 2010 at 03:08.
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 605
Likes: 12
From: UK
This helicopter is still at the very same breaker's yard, although moved approx 10 metres from its porch-top location. Check Google Maps for postcode TW16 6AX and go a bit south-west of where Google puts its red pin along Fordbridge Road and you'll soon spot the breakers yard using satellite view. Then put your little orange man in the road outside to get Street View and you'll see it.
This was one of six Adams-Wilsons known to have been in the UK and was built around 1966 by the Zabel family in the area of Canewdon, Essex and did undertake tethered flights (photos exist in my loft!) but proved unstable and it has been at Sunbury since around 1968. None of these six were registered. I have further notes somewhere, but there was one built by a Mr Purser in the Birmingham area and another by a postman in Leicester.
A seventh helicopter of very similar format was registered G-ASDF as the "Edwards Gyrocopter". It was definitely a helicopter, and perhaps registered by Major Neville Edwards as a gyrocopter as it was a rework of his Bensen B7 G-ARUN. As G-ASDF, this Adams-Wilson style helicopter flew 200-300 hours with Edwards while he was stationed at Brompton Barracks in Chatham with the Royal Engineers, and he was for a few years quite serious about creating a single seat helicopter for the Army which could be towed behind a vehicle. It never flew outside the Barracks, though, but I do have photos somewhere of it flying, and also it being trailed behind his car. In more recent years it was restored by Cotswold Aircraft Preservation Group and is now in a private collection in Herefordshire.
This was one of six Adams-Wilsons known to have been in the UK and was built around 1966 by the Zabel family in the area of Canewdon, Essex and did undertake tethered flights (photos exist in my loft!) but proved unstable and it has been at Sunbury since around 1968. None of these six were registered. I have further notes somewhere, but there was one built by a Mr Purser in the Birmingham area and another by a postman in Leicester.
A seventh helicopter of very similar format was registered G-ASDF as the "Edwards Gyrocopter". It was definitely a helicopter, and perhaps registered by Major Neville Edwards as a gyrocopter as it was a rework of his Bensen B7 G-ARUN. As G-ASDF, this Adams-Wilson style helicopter flew 200-300 hours with Edwards while he was stationed at Brompton Barracks in Chatham with the Royal Engineers, and he was for a few years quite serious about creating a single seat helicopter for the Army which could be towed behind a vehicle. It never flew outside the Barracks, though, but I do have photos somewhere of it flying, and also it being trailed behind his car. In more recent years it was restored by Cotswold Aircraft Preservation Group and is now in a private collection in Herefordshire.
