Описание
Страна : Великобритания
Год : 1961
Вертолет (проект)
Варианты
- Cierva/Saunders-Roe - W.14 Skeeter - 1948 - Великобритания
- Westland - Scout / Wasp - 1958 - Великобритания
- Saunders-Roe - P.541 - 1961 - Великобритания
Фотографии
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Air-Britain Aeromilitaria 2005-04 / Feedback
A mock-up appeared on the Westland stand at the 1961 SBAC Show at Farnborough, some three years after Ian Callier's first sighting in 1958. By now it bore the fictitious registration "G-WASR" - presumably to indicate "Westland Aircraft Saunders-Roe"?
Flight, in its SBAC Show report, reported this by noting that, "A complete Nimbus-powered Wasp (five-seat passenger version) is displayed in company colours on the Westland stand". So far we have been unable to find a photo of "GWASR". Was this still the original "P.531" mock-up suitably disguised as a potential civil project based on the Wasp? Did it resemble a Wasp (in production guise), or did it resemble the early P.531 prototypes?
There was, however, a separate Saro project - the P.541. This was a Twin Turmo-powered Executive Transport helicopter, a drawing of which is reproduced here. Did the mock-up look like this? Someone surely must have taken a photo of it, but alas no photo appeared in Flight at the time. It is significant that a mock-up was in use over a period of three years or more in both military and civil markings, and thanks to Ian, Mike and Ian O'Neill for giving us the relevant information.