What if Westland hadn't chosen the Sea King?

[McColm]

I'm making my way through the ProjectTech Profiles  'The Admiralty and the helicopter '. There's an interesting chapter on how the Westland Sea King was developed and the contenders that were rejected.

The Boeing-Vertol V.107M which went onto become the CH-46 Sea Knight, I've built a whiff version of this using the Airfix 1/72 kit. Not too many problems that PSR can't fix although the cockpit details are minimalistic and so is the cargo hold.

Sikorsky 61R CH-3B, the one with the rear loading ramp, I have used the Airfix 1/72 Jolly Green Giant model kit and tried but failed to use the parts from the HAS.5/6 both being Airfix models but the parts aren't compatible. I do know that the CH-53A Sea Stallion's engines fit the CH-3B.
Splicing and dicing will be used during this build.

The Sikorsky CH-53A Sea Stallion considered to be too big for the Royal Navy's boats (ships) to operate from and also too heavy. Plus it didn't have folding rotors at the time.
Airfix did produce a Super Jolly Green Giant although prices have begun to climb, a cheaper alternative is the Italeri MH-53 the one with three engines they too did the CH-53 but this is harder to find.

The Boeing-Vertol CH-47A Chinook. I have built the Italeri 1/72 model kit MH-47H unfortunately I got a smudge of glue on one of the glazed cockpit canopy pieces but it's not a bad kit and comes with optional parts so the older versions could be built.

Sud Aviation SA-321 Super Frelon considered not to have the required crane lifting capability, ferry range and too big.
Although Sud Aviation proposed a navalised version of the SA 330 Puma and Super Puma.
I did have a go at building the Mach2 model of the Super Frelon but had to give up. This ended up with parts from the Italeri EH-101 Merlin. I managed to salvage the engines and fit them onto the Airfix Fairey Rotodyne. I haven't built the Puma kit or Super Puma.

Westland did have the WG.1 in similar fashion to the Chinook.

I built the Westland Mil-24 Hind another Airfix kit.

An idea to remove the rotor stacks from the Chinook and add the engines from the MH-53H, I'm going to need to use the Chinook rotors in a contra-rotating fashion to offset the no rear tail rotor.

[PR19_Kit]

Interestingly the Navy were considering the Chinook for the Sea King's task.

I've just finished reading Eric Brown's 'Wings on my sleeve' and at the time he was part of the team choosing the aircraft for that task. He was hard over in favour of the Chinook as it had a much higher lifting capacity, but I can't remember why it went the way of the Sea King just now, but you can bet politics came into it somewhere.

[McColm]

Interestingly the Navy were considering the Chinook for the Sea King's task.

I've just finished reading Eric Brown's 'Wings on my sleeve' and at the time he was part of the team choosing the aircraft for that task. He was hard over in favour of the Chinook as it had a much higher lifting capacity, but I can't remember why it went the way of the Sea King just now, but you can bet politics came into it somewhere.

It was something to do with the Admiralty's 5,000lb radar, no helicopter at the time could carry it. They did reduce the weight down to 2,500lbs but found that the Chinook was too large for shipborne and tactical roles. The Chinook would be a contender for the Sea King replacement and the Sea King HC.4.

[Old Wombat]

Interestingly the Navy were considering the Chinook for the Sea King's task.

I've just finished reading Eric Brown's 'Wings on my sleeve' and at the time he was part of the team choosing the aircraft for that task. He was hard over in favour of the Chinook as it had a much higher lifting capacity, but I can't remember why it went the way of the Sea King just now, but you can bet politics came into it somewhere.

On an aircraft carrier, or a frigate, carrying capacity isn't everything - size may have played a small part, too.

Sea King
Length: 73 ft (21.9 meters)
Fuselage Length: 55 ft 10 in (17.02 m) - [Note: This does not include the Sea King's ability to fold its tail boom, too.]
Width: 16 ft 4 in (4.98 m) (rotors folded)
Height: 16 ft 10 in (5.13 m)

Chinook
Length: 98 ft 10.7 in (30.142 m)
Fuselage length: 51 ft 2 in (15.6 m)
Width: 12 ft 5 in (3.78 m) (rotors folded)
Height: 18 ft 7.8 in (5.685 m)

Possibly a better choice than either might have been the CH-46 Sea Knight

CH-46 Sea Knight
Length: 83 ft 4 in (25.40 m)
Fuselage Length: 44 ft 10 in (13.67 m)
Width: 14 ft 9 in (4.5 meters) (rotors folded)
Height: 16 ft 9 in (5.11 m) to top of rear rotor head


CH-46/CH-47 comparison: https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/compare-aircraft-results.php?aircraft1=56&aircraft2=176

[PR19_Kit]

But they were making the choice when CVA 01 was still on the table so the airframe size wasn't actually a problem then.

In passing, there's a VERY good explanation of why the CVA 01 had the island offset to port with the 'bypass' on the starboard side in Capt. Brown's book, it made a lot of sense too.

Did you know that CVA 01 only had a 2.5 degree angled deck? It did, no need for the full 7.5 or 10 degrees other carriers had at the time.

[McColm]

Costings at the time might have had something to do with their decision. The R& D cost of the Chinook  ASW conversion was estimated to be £20-30 million with a £1 million unit cost.

[Old Wombat]

But they were making the choice when CVA 01 was still on the table so the airframe size wasn't actually a problem then.

In passing, there's a VERY good explanation of why the CVA 01 had the island offset to port with the 'bypass' on the starboard side in Capt. Brown's book, it made a lot of sense too.

Did you know that CVA 01 only had a 2.5 degree angled deck? It did, no need for the full 7.5 or 10 degrees other carriers had at the time.

Yes, but the CVA-01 class weren't so large that they could ignore the constraints of hangar space (even larger US carriers, although capable of carrying them on deck, didn't operate CH-47s) or how much more deck space would be occupied by a Chinook with its rotors spinning PLUS their role at the time was ASW, not heavy lift, & the CH-47 didn't have the legs for that type of operation (except if ferry mode, when the cargo space was filled with fuel bladders) AND the helicopter had to be capable of landing on the flight deck of the Type 82 destroyer, which the Chinook couldn't because they were designed around a roughly Wessex-sized helicopter.

[PR19_Kit]

I'm just saying what was in the book......................

[McColm]

The only time I saw Chinooks landing and taking off again from British  aircraft carriers was in the C.O.D. role during military exercises. I suppose that the torpedoes or anti-ship/ASW missiles would have been fitted underneath the fuselage or stub pylons similar to those fitted to the ACH-47A.

[kitbasher]

The Sea King was a damned good aircraft, and the Westland version (yes, rather different from the Sikorsky originals) proved to be a nice little earner for the UK.

I think the RN ended up with the right machine at the right time, and Eric Brown was backing the wrong horse.  But what do I know?

[Gondor]

But they were making the choice when CVA 01 was still on the table so the airframe size wasn't actually a problem then.

In passing, there's a VERY good explanation of why the CVA 01 had the island offset to port with the 'bypass' on the starboard side in Capt. Brown's book, it made a lot of sense too.

Did you know that CVA 01 only had a 2.5 degree angled deck? It did, no need for the full 7.5 or 10 degrees other carriers had at the time.

Yes, but the CVA-01 class weren't so large that they could ignore the constraints of hangar space (even larger US carriers, although capable of carrying them on deck, didn't operate CH-47s) or how much more deck space would be occupied by a Chinook with its rotors spinning PLUS their role at the time was ASW, not heavy lift, & the CH-47 didn't have the legs for that type of operation (except if ferry mode, when the cargo space was filled with fuel bladders) AND the helicopter had to be capable of landing on the flight deck of the Type 82 destroyer, which the Chinook couldn't because they were designed around a roughly Wessex-sized helicopter.

The Type 82 was not designed to have a flight deck, so no problem with the Chinook as no helicopters were designed to operate from them. Admittedly, later in it's life, the Limbo mortar was removed and later was plated over after being a swimming pool for a while, but there was still no hangar for any aircraft.

Gondor

[Old Wombat]

She had a flight deck added, in part to support ASW operations.

Type 82 Destroyer

D 23 - HMS Bristol

[PR19_Kit]

But there was only one of her..............

[McColm]

For the ASW Frigates the Westland Wasp and its replacement the Westland Lynx which was developed into the Wild Cat. I'm not too sure if the SA 330 Puma would be too big for these ships in a naval format.

[jcf]

Westland had a manufacturing and technology sharing agreement with Sikorsky going
back to 1945 and started production of the S-51 Dragonfly in 1946, why would they
have suddenly switched to a completely different Boeing product?