The Westland Wyvern; Outdated Monster

There are a lot of airplanes that, despite an apparently good design, were doomed to failure by not being able to provide them with a decent engine, but every now and then you come across one that manages to succeed despite the manufacturers' repeated failures. of power plants to make their products work well enough to use them. and the current aircraft, the Westland Wyver, is in some ways even more notable in that not only did it have repeated engine problems and specification changes, but the type was also given a great deal of time to evolve until it finally entered service; in fact, probably too long.

As will become evident, from the beginning of the design to the introduction of the hypothetical service, it was a huge 9 years, on the contrary, the Gramman F-14 took about eight years and during three of them Gramman was only working on it as a concept aircraft, however, we cannot sustain it completely. That long gestation against the

wyvern

because it was an aircraft that was at the forefront of new cutting-edge technology that helps explain some of this long process and, like many other post-war British transport aircraft, the design was altered quite a bit. The way before the aircraft flew the origins of the

wyvern

date back to a study carried out in early 1944 by wesland for the new Strike Fighter aircraft carrier, the admiralty was so interested in wand's proposals that the Air Ministry issued a specification in April 1944 exclusively for the new aircraft that It may seem optimistic, as Westland built naval aircraft of their own design from 1915, although they were the main producers of Seafires and the Fery Barracuda. ​​However, Westland obviously made a good impression because the Royal Air Force also got involved and commissioned its own prototypes for testing.

With all this interest, the design team set about solidifying their ideas and by September of that year they had settled on a fairly ambitious concept that would be larger and heavier than any previous British single-engine transport aircraft; in fact, it weighed more than the Grumm Avenger and the Havan C Hornet twin-engine fighter and it was not this factor alone that made the Wyver stand out, although somewhat conventional in appearance with its low-wing monoplane and tail-dragging design. In fact, the Wyver was planned from the beginning to use a turboprop. engine combined with a counter-rotating propeller. Completely new concepts that really set the wyvern apart from contemporary aircraft;

However, as the British turboprop engines being considered for use in the Wyver, the Rolls-Royce Clyde and the Armstrong Sidley Python were still under development at the time it was thought that it would be better and wiser to equip the First Wyver with a conventional piston engine, so the idea was that the first Mark 1 aircraft would have the new Rolls-Royce Eagle 20 2, a liquid-cooled 24-cylinder block. design that produced 3,500 horsepower so far so good, but naturally things began to go well Ary not long after that, for starters, in 1944 jet aircraft were introduced into British service and Rolls-Royce realized that there wasn't going to be much demand. for new piston engine designs, so they scaled back development of the Eagle and focused most of their attention on jet and turbine engines, this probably proved shrewd, as in late 1946 the RAF abandoned their order of 10 pre-production wyverns and decided they were going to do it.

To concentrate only on Jets, Wesland pressed on and in December 1946 the first Wyvern took off. This engine with the Rolls-Royce Eagle formed the basis for the tf1 wyvern and on paper they certainly seem to have promised the TF wyvern, short for torpedo hunters. Westland estimated the Mark One to have a top speed of 456 mph, which I admit I have doubts about, and along with it, the standard 420mm Hispano Cannon armament fixed to the wings was capable of carrying a torpedo or 3 x 1,000 liter bombs or 16 rp3 air-to-ground rockets; However, in the end only six of the Eagle-powered prototypes and another seven of the TF 1 Wyver would be built, as Rolls-Royce abandoned the Eagle entirely in 1947 after failing to build enough engines to fill orders. .

At this point, although interest was really fixed on the possible turboprop versions and already in 1946 orders had been placed for three prototypes, one with the Clyde and two with Python engines, as well as another order for 20 pre-production aircraft, the Wyvern TF2. To keep the amount of design work on the TF2 to a minimum, the same cockpit and wings were used as on the TF 1, with the main modifications being an increase in the depth of the center and rear fuselage to accommodate the jet's exhaust pipes. of the new engine, however, the development of turboprops had understandable drawbacks and prototypes with these engines did not fly until early 1949, by which time the decision had been made that the Clyde, which produced just over 4,000 horsepower shaft equivalents, it wasn't actually Instead, Rolls-Royce will be put into production focusing on its Jets and the more advanced dark turboprop, so apart from the one prototype with the Clyde, this naturally meant that the Python was the engine selected for the new aircraft and also this the wyver tf2 received another new feature of ejector seats as standard, which turned out to be a real lifesaver;

In due course, flight tests showed that there were a variety of problems, including the massive 13-tonne diameter propellers and the forces Ed was exerting in certain flight profiles, which led to repeated changes and adjustments being made to the aircraft, especially in the tailplane, which increased substantially in size and eventually had small vertical fins added. Problems with the flight of the plane that led to the deaths of several pilots during tests led to only one example. Of the T3 Wyver two-seat trainer being built, this was effectively a TF2 with a modified fuselage with tandem cockpits, each with its own sliding canopy and ejection seat, while the instructor in the rear also had a periscope to improve your eyesight.

This made its initial flight in May 1951, but official interest waned and no production of the T3 occurred; Some sources said that the plane ended up being written off after a false landing shortly after it began flying, the first Python engines proved problematic and because the engine type was gradually improved until Python 3, this fact, along with The other large number of design elements meant that the first real service model was the S4 wyvern, the S standing for attack, as all illusions of the wyvern being a fighter were firmly ruled out at this point, the S4. which included the last 7 tf2s which were modified while under construction to the new standard, entered land-based squadron service with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm in May 1953 replacing the much maligned Blackburn Firebrand equipped with the aforementioned Python 3 which produced 3,670 shaft horsepower along with 1,180 additional residual force from the exhaust, the S4s had a top speed of only 383 M hour, which probably explains the drop from the fighter designation, but They could carry the same payloads as previous models, although carrier trials had been carried out as early as 1949.

With the TF1 it was not until September 1954 that the first Saw Service of the Wyvern on an aircraft carrier was deployed with 813 Squadron at HMS albian in the Mediterranean and, despite the wyvern's long testing regime, a new and rather worrying defect soon came to light: the python does not appreciate the sudden acceleration experienced when launched from a catapult, causing lack of fuel and often causes the engine to shut down on takeoff. Not an ideal situation for a transport aircraft and in October 1954 this led to another first that Lieutenant McFarland of the Royal Navy had. He had just been launched from the Albun when his engine immediately shut down, causing him to crash directly into the carrier's path, likely running him over.

McFarland managed to remain calm and, despite having 24,000 tons of ship pounding over his head as he rapidly sank, caused him to be ejected. seat, making him the first person to successfully eject underwater. Oh, and if you're interested in the background inspiration for this particular ejection seat model, check out my video on the Martin Baker Mark II fighter, but to get back on topic, obviously the wyvern despite its long development still had problems, but they were resolved and the following year the type was finally in full service, which meant that when Britain found itself in a confrontation with Egypt in November 1956, WN would see its only combat operation as a musketeer.

The French plan in coordination with Israel to seize the Suez Canal, which had been nationalized by the Egyptian leader Gaml Nassa, the full history of this matter and its causes are beyond the scope of this video, but suffice it to say that when the Anglo-French amphibious invasion. Among the large number of aircraft employed by the two Nations' aircraft carriers were two wyvern squadrons that carried out air strikes on Egyptian airfields and in support of the ground offensive blew up a total of 79 sites and lost two aircraft to anti-aircraft fire. , with both pilots successful. The expulsion of the Suz crisis marked the swan song of both the British as a great power and Westland Wyver itself, since in 1957 the plane began to be withdrawn from service and was completely replaced in 1958, although theoretically it was in service in 1953, in fact, the effective Frontline.

Use of the wyvern actually only dates back to 1955-57, somewhat ridiculous considering the length of its development, in total 124 wyverns were completed, including prototypes, and these suffered an accident rate of 39 lost with 13 pilot deaths, which which, to be fair, wasn't particularly a problem. To be honest, it's an unusual statistic for airplanes of this era and I admit I haven't found anything to substantiate this, it's just my theory, but the FAA's persistence in putting the wyvern into service seems almost like an exercise in bloody mentality both like any admitted desire. Banking on the failure of the jet engine to use transport aircraft probably made sense in 1944 45, but the success of designs such as the Seahawk, which actually managed to put the wyver into service, meant that there was no real need for the aircraft.

I suspect that the Royal Navy was still enthralled by the idea of ​​the torpedo bomber for possible use against the Soviet navy, mainly in the North Sea and in particular the replacement of the Firebrand by the wyvern certainly confirms this, but it seems that the The torpedo plane concept was also in its final stages with the Royal Navy when the Wyn was acceptable for service again, explaining the very short life of the type and its replacement by more formidable and more useful jet attack aircraft.