The Westland Wasp entered into service with the Royal Navy in 1963. Its design enabled it to be operated from small ships in poor weather conditions. A total of 98 were built and service continued well into the late 80s.
I remember when you could buy a Westland Wasp as Army surplus from the Exchange and Mart magazine. I really wanted one, but didn't have the £850.00 needed. Bugger.
Yep, so many great surplus offers that passed us all by due to lack of funds. I quite fancy a Gazelle ......dream on! An elderly chap I worked with at Fairoaks many years ago, remembered, as a young man just starting work at the airfield, helping to take 'surplus' Tiger Moths to the far side of the airfield, stripped of engines and instruments, 'standing' the fuselages up, tail ends together in a cone and burning them! The wings were piled around the lot to add to the cone efficiency of 'disposal'. Just tragic.
@@lawrencemartin1113 interesting! It also shows how much we are attached to material things these days. I remember dog carts, usually for small items. We would now scream animal abuse!
This is very early film - none of the aircraft appeared to have the flotation gear rigged. My dad would have loved this - he was the SMR on two Wasp flights; HMS Zulu and HMS Arethusa.
Excellent! What great little helicopters these are. Thanks so much for the link to this from my comments on the Scout film. BTW, I read in PILOT magazine this month that one unlucky Scout owner recently lost his passenger door widow in flight as a result of the rubber sealing gasket failing due to it being perished. I bet that will be expensive! Helicopters, especially vintage Helicopters: a constant never ending requirement for high maintenance and spares and eye wateringly expensive! I used to see the occasional Wasp and Scout pop into Fairoaks when I worked there back in the late eighties. Possibly the first civi owned examples. Thanks for the post.
