Westland Scout research

[John Eacott]

Originally Posted by Brian Abraham

Anyone know the reason for the different tailplane location on Scout/Wasp?

Only a guess, Brian, but most likely dictated by the tail fold requirements for ship storage.



IIRC, early Daring class hangars were a lift down under the flight deck, nice and cosy fitting in there!

[Savoia]

When remembering the Scout one doesn't instinctively think of longlining or logging, but ..

[dermedicus]

The first helicopter I ever saw close up, an AAC one in the eighties on the back of a truck at a Butlin's holiday camp. I was captivated by it and my interest in aviation started pretty much there.

I still think it looks like a lovely helicopter.

Is there any truth to the assertion on Wiki (I am naturally cynical about that resource) regarding the proximity of the heating and fuel controls causing accidents?

[Brian Abraham]

Thanks John.

When remembering the Scout one doesn't instinctively think of longlining or logging, but ..

Spent a very happy 160 hours driving a Scout, and sling loading was its reason for being. Used on a hydrographic survey ship for setting up tidepole camps and Hi Fix navigation stations. Made the last in service flight in the aircraft 1/8/73 where upon it went into storage and later found a home in the FAA museum at Nowra. Was paraded flying at various airshows by the museum and see it still appears on the civil register.

Always considered the Scout the sports car of helicopters - beautiful handling, though coming from the Huey its fuel consumption was prodigious for the power produced.



The Ship HMAS Moresby



The Aircraft



The Pilot - why the flare gun on the right of the instrument panel? Never got an answer, must be an Army thing.



On the job



Bruce Crawford and self arriving with its replacement at Nowra 11/10/73. Brand new off the production line - 5:20 hours on the clock

[John Eacott]

Originally Posted by Brian Abraham

The Pilot - why the flare gun on the right of the instrument panel? Never got an answer, must be an Army thing.

More a navy thing: Passmore attempting to hijack an 826NAS Sea King






And why did you have a handbrake on a skid helicopter?

[Brian Abraham]

And why did you have a handbrake on a skid helicopter?

Had two of them actually John, the one on the left being the rotor brake.

[Lingo Dan]

Another little design "eccentricity" of the Scout - at least in the mid-70s version that I flew - was that the heater control and the HP fuel cock control were worrying close together.

Don't think I used the heater very much for this reason.

[DSquadron]

Was A Navy thing now seems to be more a RAF thing, with the Chinnys and Pumas the only ones still having the old Pistol, Pyro,No 4 Mk1 1 1/2 Inch fitted. even the Merlin has a box for Pistol and carts. not that there's ever anything in them.
And when i say old, most of them are 1940's vintage.

Love the HiJack fot, " Take this Plane, To Luton"

On Another Note, we used to do a lot of gunnery here at BCE on the Scout, with two skid mounted fwd firing GPMGs down at Castle Martin, With the ETPS. bit before my time but they were still in the gun bay when I was a snotty nosed apprentice.

[SilsoeSid]

Two examples

ASN Aircraft accident 03-JAN-1966 Westland Scout AH.1 XR638
Date: 03-JAN-1966
Time:
Type: Westland Scout AH.1
Owner/operator: 21 Flt AAC
Registration: XR638
C/n / msn: F9538
Fatalities: Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Other fatalities: 0
Airplane damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Location: Marlborough, Wiltshire - United Kingdom
Phase: En route
Nature: Delivery
Departure airport: RNAY Wroughton, Wiltshire
Destination airport: AAC Middle Wallop
Narrative:
Encountered engine problems while on a delivery flight from Wroughton to Middle Wallop. It lost height and crashed tail first at Marlborough, Wiltshire. It then caught fire and burnt out killing the two crew. Caused by inadvertent closure of the fuel cock in mistake for the heater control

ASN Aircraft accident 10-MAR-1966 Westland Scout AH.1 XT619
Date: 10-MAR-1966
Time:
Type: Westland Scout AH.1
Owner/operator: 21 Flt AAC
Registration: XT619
C/n / msn: F9625
Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 3
Other fatalities: 0
Airplane damage: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Location: Stanford PTA, near Thetford, Norfolk - United Kingdom
Phase: En route
Nature: Military
Departure airport: Stanford Army Training Area, Norfolk
Destination airport:
Narrative:
Written off 10/3/1966: While serving with 21 Flt, Army Air Corps, the aircraft was carrying a soldier in a stretcher pod as part of a casevac scenario, during Exercise ‘Baker’s Dozen', at the Stanford PTA, near Thetford, Norfolk. The pilot inadvertently shut off the fuel cock instead of the cabin heater. The pilot reopened the fuel cock, but during the subsequent attempted emergency landing, the main rotors struck a tree and the aircraft crashed in a ploughed field near Thetford. The two crew and the soldier in the stracher pod were injured.

[MOSTAFA]

Became a well known ergonomic problem very quickly which they corrected by riveting a 17 pence clip thingy to lock the HP cock when fully open. I never understood the problem personally - one swivelled vertically and the other horizontally and they certainly didn't look anything like one another.

That said I always remembered what a very sharpe and experienced Scout god told me on conversion "Don't touch either at times of high workload or stress"!

You only got one bite of the cherry on very sporty EOLs, probably the reason for so many Cat 5s. Hot and Hi, I don't think I ever saw a run on shorter than 3/4s of a football pitch in hundreds and hundreds of attempts.

[Gazzer1uk]

Autorotation

Guys,

You are really being so helpful, and it is truly fascinating. To those who have kindly posted pictures, could they PM me if they would be happy me using them in the project, the more scale like I can make this the better!!

I have heard the Scout did not autorotate that well, is this true. I am sure I recall many moons ago one of the Blue Peter presenters as a passenger on a Scout when it did an auto test, I am sure he yelled out as it pitched down!!!

Thanks to those posting serial numbers of the airframes, or registration details, not found any that has yet been in both places, as both were dank and frequently wet, the airframe would probably not have known too much of the difference lol! Having lived there, I never saw so much rain as anywhere else I have lived since!

The project folder for the build has been started, my CAD genius friend is interested so fairly soon we will be looking at a prototype to prove some of the ideas, likely this will be about 1/7th scale and not overly sensitive to scale detail more like a proof of concept. I'll let you know how it progress's and importantly when.

Thanks again, look forward to some more stories!

Cheers,

Gaz

[John Eacott]

Originally Posted by MOSTAFA

You only got one bite of the cherry on very sporty EOLs probably the reason for so many Cat 5s.

As an interested bit of talking ballast on a Wasp (I know, but it's close enough to the Scout) on an air test over Malta, ISTR an auto with something like 3,000fpm ROD doors off as the earth rose up to meet us. Needless to say the driver wondered what I was concerned about.

[MOSTAFA]

This is coming from memory before the purists come along with the exact figures and a great many airframes have gone in between for me.

I think it was all fairly relative - But coming from the Gazelle which army instructors threw at the ground at least 6 times most days, in auto the ROD was about 16/1700fpm at 60kts compared to the Scout at 23/2400fpm at 50+kts opened your eyes - the flare did very little to decrease the ROD but would significantly decrease the run on speed. Add to that +34 with a DA of +2000' ish to PA and it took no prisoners - none at all.

[Gazzer1uk]

Autorotation

Thanks Mostofa,

Worked out what ROD meant but could not work out +34 with DA of +2000ish to PA... it sounds bad especially if DA means descent angle!!

Could you possibly explain it for me? We don't get so specific on the models yet, though now many systems do incorporate telemetry of which one is rotor speed...... usually the only way to spot a forced autorotate is by a silence or speedy unplanned pirouette, at which point it becomes a judgement!

Thanks, sorry not to know of such vocabulary whilst posting here!

Gaz

[MOSTAFA]

Sorry Gaz,

Density Altitude (DA) is a term that can cause confusion, especially if I try!

High DA is never a good thing for heli's. It's defined as Pressure Altitude (PA) corrected for non-standard temperature variations and whilst this is a my best definition, I think a more appropriate one would be: DA is the altitude the helicopter thinks its at and performs in accordance with this computable value.

Say you were using a landing point situated at an elevation of 3000', its possible with a low pressure and hot outside air temp to have a DA of 6000' due to pressure and temperature. Basically the heli would be working at 3000' but have the performance of being at 6000'. Higher you go the less dense the air is.

As for rotor speeds - small blades high enertia - I'm really racking my brain here but I seem to remember something like 410 with a beep range of -2 +9?? Hopefully somebody will remember.

Now I need to lie down.

[Gazzer1uk]

No apology needed

Hi Mostafa,

It is me that ought apologise for spelling your user ID wrong in the first place.

However, your explanation is fine, I understand... thin air = thin ice!!! as in not enough resistance to keep the fan spinning!

I believe high inertia is a good thing as it means it is easier to keep the blades RPM up.

On a mid sized model the rpm is about 1600, with the plan for this model, I reckon between 800 to 1000, probably made from carbon fibre and composite, which usually "windmill" quite well. That said, ceiling is not going to be more than 300 feet I guess..... DA more likely to be a temperature effect, but slight if at all at such altitudes. You need to see the damn thing and even at 1/4 scale, it gets quite small, very quickly! Mind, there are now on board GPS technologies that can bring it back to the start point, as these tend to work with the gyro stabilisation systems, potentially a welcome feature!

Thanks again, enjoy the lie down and just know you are enriching some one elses life!

Cheers,

Gaz

[rotarywise]

EOLs in the Scout/Wasp were certainly interesting. I recall one individual who, having experienced an engine failure at 500ft downwind at North Front, managed to land successfully on the runway - Green Endorsement. Unfortunately, some few years later, he spread an aircraft all down the runway at Merryfield while trying to show a student how it was done. A rather cavalier approach, I always thought.

[Brian Abraham]

EOLs in the Scout/Wasp were certainly interesting.

For a young lad coming from the benign Huey they were certainly eye watering.

Gazzer, if you are interested in serial nos etc, details on the two Australian Scouts can be found here.

Welcome to ADF Serials

[Lingo Dan]

I came to the Scout from the Whirlwind, whose engine-off characteristics were so benign that basic-course students were allowed a solo EOL sortie.

At the end of my Scout famil' trip, I saw my first EOL demonstrated. It all happened with bewildering speed, the rate of descent was at least twice that of a Whirlwind, and indeed we rattled along about the length of a football pitch once on the ground. (wet grass, perhaps) The instructor said "one of my better ones!" And I wondered what I had let myself in for!

I recall also that an autorotation technique taught was 50 knots and perhaps 45 (fading memory on the details) degrees of bank. This was a truly spectacular exercise, with the rate of descent pinned against the bottom RCDI stop.

However, all that said, I flew the Scout for over 3 years, about 1300 hours and "she" never let me down. Truly, a sports car of the sky.

[Savoia]

Apologies all round that 'the Colonel' failed to address the Sprout's poorly autorotitive qualities while testing it in it's P531 prototype configuration! (He probably thought it was good for keeping the lads on their toes mind you!)

Herewith a 'Sprout' entering autorotation from a free-air hover. Enjoy!