Aeroplane – June 2018

100 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com AEROPLANE JULY 2018

begin for the purchase of 12

Rotodynes at £1 million each.

However, progress had been

so slow that a year passed and

the authority lapsed.

A highly revealing internal

minute headed “secret” and

dated April 1961, now in the

National Archives at Kew,

pointed out that if BEA

decided against ordering the

Rotodyne only the military

requirement would be keeping

it alive. “If our attitude kills it”,

the author observed, “we shall

cause the government great

political embarrassment”. It

would also antagonise the

Ministry of Aviation, “on whom

we are dependent in other

important fi elds.”

By April 1961 the RAF was

fi rming up its requirement for

fi xed-wing light transports. It

was now considering a military

version of the Handley Page

Herald, which would cost

£50,000 less than the military

Avro 748 and be available 12

to 18 months earlier. The

Caribou was now judged too

small. The offi cials

acknowledged that the

Rotodyne could operate from

unprepared fi elds and would

have four times the capacity of

the twin-rotor Bristol

Belvedere, but its unit cost was

now over £1 million.

The government recognised

there would have to be a

public inquiry into the

construction of a central

London heliport and that noise

would be a central issue. It

had provisionally agreed to

contribute up to £1.4 million

towards BEA’s costs of

introducing the Rotodyne into

service and the Ministry of

Aviation was already looking

ahead to that event.

Accordingly, it was being

suggested that as a way of

gaining the necessary

experience a fl eet of nine

Westland (formerly Bristol)

192C twin-rotor helicopters be

acquired for the purpose, at a

cost of £9 million. They could

be used on the service

between Land’s End and the

Scillies.

But time was running out for

the Rotodyne. In their 1962

defence review the chiefs of

staff fi nally decided to go

public with their opposition to

the project and declare that,

despite its obvious advantages,

the aircraft was not wanted: it

was just too expensive. Capital

cost had risen to £14 million

with running costs put at £2

million a year. At the same time

BEA was having grave doubts

about the Rotodyne’s operating

economics as well as its noise.

The matter came to a head

at a cabinet meeting in

February 1962. Senior ministers

had before them a paper

drafted by Peter Thorneycroft

which set out the

consequences of cancelling the

Rotodyne. “The services would

lose the only heavy-lift aircraft

with VTOL capability available

before the 1970s”, he wrote. before the 1970s”, he wrote.

CANCELLATION FAIREY ROTODYNE

“In the civil fi eld we should be

abandoning a project which is

unique of its kind and might

achieve a breakthrough in

export markets without having

any plans for developing an

alternative British helicopter of

this class.”

But the cabinet ignored

these arguments. It was more

concerned about the cost of

continuing the project, which

even Thorneycroft

acknowledged would be

“considerable.”

With the offi cial funding tap

turned off Westland was told it

was free to go ahead on its

own to attract interest in the

project. It was no great surprise

when it declined to proceed on

this basis. Even so, Fairey fl ight

test engineer David Gibbings

and his colleagues thought

they’d been let down. “We felt

we’d been stabbed in the

back”, he told Aeroplane. “The

reasons for the cancellation

were quite justifi able”. But, he

added, “What was unforgivable

was the way the government

allowed the prototype to be

cut up and all the information

dispersed.”

XE521 made its last fl ight in

1962 and was then scrapped

at the Royal Aircraft

Establishment at Farnborough.

Today, The Helicopter Museum

at Weston-super-Mare holds

the only remaining major

Rotodyne components, which

include an Eland engine, a

complete test rotor blade and

several tip-jets. These items

were airlifted to the museum

by an RAF Chinook and, after a

long period in storage, repair

and restoration began in 1995.

The work was completed the

following year.

The basic idea remains alive,

however. In the early 2000s

NASA’s Ames Research Center

instituted a Runway

Independent Aircraft study to

consider how advanced

rotorcraft, fl ying at up to

350mph (560km/h), could

operate as regional airliners to

ease the pressure on

congested airports and air

traffi c systems, refl ecting the

original ideas underpinning the

Rotodyne. NASA said the

necessary technologies have

yet to be developed.

Meanwhile, other work on

experimental gyrodynes in the

USA may or may not vindicate

the Rotodyne and its

underlying concept.

It remains a sad paradox,

however, that the Rotodyne’s

potential was widely

recognised yet nobody was

prepared to make the

necessary investment to realise

it. Half a century ago the

Rotodyne captured the

imagination of many. Today

there are those who still think

it was another potential British

world-beater that was

abandoned simply because

the powers-that-be lacked the

bottle to back it. Even so, by

the time the Rotodyne was

ready for service the

availability of fast motorway

and inter-city rail links would

have begun to dilute its

BELOW: The Rotodyne Z for BEA potential civilian market.

as it was depicted in a large-scale

model exhibited on the Fairey

stand at Farnborough in 1961,

unlikely ‘G-AFAL’ registration and

all. CHRIS SANDHAM-BAILEY

The cabinet ignored the pro-Rotodyne

arguments. It was more concerned about the cost

of continuing the project

85-100_AM_Database_July18_cc C.indd 100 04/06/2018 17:01