Aeroplane – June 2018

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

CANCELLATION FAIREY ROTODYNE

T

he government’s

involvement with the

Rotodyne lasted

around a dozen years,

and for most of that period it

was the subject of sharp

disagreement within Whitehall

and Westminster. But while

there were some in the

corridors of power who

welcomed its cancellation, one

man at least allowed his regret

to show.

Announcing the project’s

cancellation in the Commons,

aviation minister Peter

Thorneycroft — ironically, the

government’s premier

Rotodyne supporter —

acknowledged his “regret that

what I had hoped was a

promising engineering project

cannot be carried through to

fulfi lment.”

He was not alone. Several

cabinet colleagues, including

Duncan Sandys, successively

defence minister and aviation

minister, and Harold Watkinson

who succeeded Sandys in both

posts, were also Rotodyne

supporters. Even Prime

Minister Harold Macmillan was

intrigued by it. He wrote in

1958, “This seems an exciting

project and I would like to

know what are its potentialities

and possibilities”. Ranged

against the project, however,

were the Treasury and the RAF

supported by senior Air

Ministry offi cials.

There was even a division of

opinion within defence circles.

The army’s interest in the

Rotodyne had stemmed from a

War Offi ce paper of October

1958 which outlined a

requirement for a VTOL aircraft

able to carry a three-ton

payload over 200 miles. The

Rotodyne and Westland

Westminster were subsequently

evaluated and the Fairey

product emerged as best-

suited to meet the army’s

needs. Accordingly, a cabinet

committee chaired by

Macmillan himself accepted in

principle the need for a military

variant of the Tyne-Rotodyne.

In August 1959 the

government agreed to

reimburse all Fairey’s

development costs should a

specifi c minimum production

order not be placed. But this

wasn’t enough. In December

Sandys told the Commons that

Fairey wanted additional

fi nancial assistance.

The cabinet had concluded

by January 1960 that there was

a need for 18 Rotodynes, but

by then the consolidation of

the British aerospace industry

was in its fi nal stages. Westland

was swiftly contracted by the

government to develop the

Tyne-Rotodyne and the

government announced that

the Rotodyne would proceed

as a joint civil-military project. It

also said it was prepared to

contribute half the

development costs up to a

maximum of £4 million.

Despite the enthusiasm of

defence minister Harold

Watkinson, offi cials and senior

RAF offi cers were quietly

building a case against the

Rotodyne. The Air Staff had

accepted the requirement for

the machine “without

enthusiasm” and now the RAF

had persuaded the army that it

didn’t need it. Its requirements

would be better met by

fi xed-wing STOL aircraft, which

would be easier to operate and

maintain than the Rotodyne,

and a good deal cheaper. The

aircraft’s unit cost had already

risen from £550,000 to around

£1 million and the aircraft’s

expected payload over a

200-mile radius had now fallen

from seven tons to 4.75. And it

wouldn’t be ready before 1966.

At that stage the RAF’s

preference in the light cargo

role was the STOL-capable de

Havilland Canada DHC-4

Caribou. BEA was also having

doubts, mainly because of the

noise issue. By mid-1960 the

airline had still not placed an

order for the Rotodyne. Its

chairman, Lord Douglas of

Kirtleside, asked the

government for an undertaking

that if it was prevented

because of noise from using

the Rotodynes for city centre

operations it would not be

Killed off before its time,

or an inevitable end?

It now seems debatable whether

the city-to-city market the

Rotodyne was intended to serve

ever really existed. LEONARDO

Aviation minister Peter Thorneycroft wrote in

March 1961, “Potentially, there is no more

promising helicopter in the world”

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