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Wessex rotor blade colour?


Stephen

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On 9/2/2012 at 6:48 AM, Dave Swindell said:

Beleive this was the lower surface and was to help the pilot judge horizontal distance from the rotor disc to obstructions - cliffs, trees etc - whcih could put a damper on your day if you touched them!

Not the lower surface but actually the upper surface so the rotor was visible from above to parachutes and hang-gliders etc when the helicopter was low level near cliffs.

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On 9/2/2012 at 9:02 PM, Widow 65 said:

Thanks for that, it seems to make perfect sense, never know why i didnt think of that before!!!!

cheers

Nick

The yellow blade was only yellow on the upper surface so the rotor was clearly visible from above especially to parachutes and hang-gliders when the 🚁was low level near cliffs. Nothing at all to do with the pilot seeing the tips which were all yellow top and bottom anyway.

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On 07/09/2012 at 10:58, tarlucan said:

Although the "yellow blade" made an appearance on 72 Sqn, it was immediately unpopular as the main threat was from low level (and the AAC!) so anything making the aircraft more conspicuous was a retrograde step. I seem to recall that the engineers would assign the SAR standby role to a cab with a yellow blade.That was the closest any of us wanted to be seen in a yellow helicopter!

I recall sitting by the open door of a 230 Sqn Puma as it provided top cover to a 72 Sqn Wessex landing troops in a field near Londonderry. I had a clear view of the yellow rotor blade as the rotors were turning below... and feeling a bit anxious that my bergen might tumble out of the cab if we banked any harder. 

Edited by Rickoshea52
Grammar
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  • 4 months later...
On 9/2/2012 at 6:00 PM, Wafu said:

The 'SAR Blade' was fitted to all SAR cabs both RN and Crab to aid visual detection by other aircraft and cliff rescue guys, some Wessex blades also had Beta lights fitted to the tip caps to show the tip path at night, very striking when flying in formation at night, the rotor and small strip beta lights on the airframe (pre NVG days) :mental: :mental:

The SAR Blade was 'only' painted on the upper surface to replace the green paintwork with the cradle stripes being black.

Hope this helps.

Resurrecting a really old thread I know.... but can any please confirm if the 84 Sqn HC5C's  (and in particular XS485) had the yellow SAR blade fitted to them during the 1987 time frame when they were in the Dark Sea Grey/ Dark Green over Black scheme.

 

I cannot find any references to them having the yellow blade...maybe the SAR blade came out at a later date?

 

Thanks in advance

 

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I think I’m correct in saying that the yellow (termed ‘interruptor’) blade was introduced on 22 Sqn after a parachutist was killed hitting a helicopter rotor at Andover in 1987. This date would certainly tie in with my recollection of the introduction of this mod. The blades were as described, matt yellow on the upper surface only and faded quite quickly in service. I would be surprised if this was introduced to 84 Sqn In 1987 but you never do know.

If we were trying to get a set to work together it complicated things quite a bit having to include a yellow one (they were set based on their flying hours (which would result in the blade ‘untwisting’ over time) and weight, we weren’t allowed to adjust the balance weights under the tip cap). As a result of this I seem to remember a couple of occasions when we had to operate with four standard blades and a Deferred Defect until a different yellow blade turned up from HQSARW. Some blades just didn’t want to play and were termed ‘rogue’ which would be noted on the F731. 

Edited by Tramatoa
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The accident happened in August 1987 so I think you are looking at the introduction of the interruptor blade over the winter of 87/88 on UK SAR aircraft, overseas aircraft almost certainly later than that.

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Hi, Tramatoa, I agree your memory on dates, as they were being introduced while  I was at Finningley (86-88).  I think the idea was to introduce the flot gear to the RAF SAR fleet at the same time but the blades were easier and got there first.  I seem to remember the trial fit of the flot gear in '88.  The yellow blades worked well - the FJ trainees at Valley used to complain of distraction from the Wessi flying in the local area.

Regards

Tim

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  • 2 years later...

I just discovered this thread while trying to get information about Wessex rotor blade colors. I'm going to be building the 1/72 Italeri kit as an FAA HAS.3, No. 737 NAS aboard HMS Antrim, Falkland, 1982. It'll be in the two-tone scheme of Yellow and Blue Grey. The instructions, which I assume are rubbish? give Medium Gray (FS 35237, which is a blue-greenish gray used in US Navy tactical schemes, for both main and tail rotors; and they call out dark metallic for the main rotor leading edge areas. They say nothing about the rotor under sides.

 

The photo below taken at the Duxford museum looks like a darker color (Dark Green?) for the upper surface with an even darker strip along the leading edge. Should I go with the Dark Green/Black combination mentioned at the beginning of this thread, or something else? Tail rotor Dark Green as well?

 

spacer.png

 

Thanks! Pip

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Looks like dark green to me, unless it's a trick of the light.  Photos taken from the other side of this aircraft show black blades - are those the undersides?  It's rather confusing.

 

49548320861_c27697aef8_c.jpgIMG_8006 by Fred Taylor, on Flickr

25084976041_1c8f17e00b_c.jpgWestland Wessex HAS1 - IWM Duxford, Sunday 21st February 2016 by Chris Day, on Flickr

4482197437_e14c61779d_c.jpgXS863 Wessex HAS.1 by Irish251, on Flickr

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2 hours ago, Irish 251 said:

Looks like dark green to me, unless it's a trick of the light.  Photos taken from the other side of this aircraft show black blades - are those the undersides?  It's rather confusing.

 

Great photos, Irish 251! Thanks for posting them. If you go back through this thread, dark green tops and black bottoms were put forward as typical for RAF Wessexes, so apparently it's a good bet for FAA birds as well.

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I m building a Wessex HU5 based in Cyprus. Its a rescue helicopter in green and gray.

 

Done almost with building the fuselage, painting and decals. Its a long build, documented here on this forum. Now to the rotor. So the info in this thread has been very helpful.

 

Few questions.

 

  1. Did the Cyprus based rescue helicopter have a yellow colored blade? 
  2. Does anyone have picture of the leading edge of the rotor? It seems there is a thicker coating on the edge. I want to know what it is and its pattern. 
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53 minutes ago, Daedalus72 said:

IIRC tail rotor blades were red/white/tips, light aircraft grey with a natural metal leading edge for pre mod items, olive green with red tips for post mod items

Can't remember the mod Number though

 

What will be the color for aircraft based in Cyprus?

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On 29/11/2021 at 19:39, Seawinder said:

I just discovered this thread while trying to get information about Wessex rotor blade colors. I'm going to be building the 1/72 Italeri kit as an FAA HAS.3, No. 737 NAS aboard HMS Antrim, Falkland, 1982. It'll be in the two-tone scheme of Yellow and Blue Grey. The instructions, which I assume are rubbish? give Medium Gray (FS 35237, which is a blue-greenish gray used in US Navy tactical schemes, for both main and tail rotors; and they call out dark metallic for the main rotor leading edge areas. They say nothing about the rotor under sides.

 

The photo below taken at the Duxford museum looks like a darker color (Dark Green?) for the upper surface with an even darker strip along the leading edge. Should I go with the Dark Green/Black combination mentioned at the beginning of this thread, or something else? Tail rotor Dark Green as well?

 

(Picture snipped)

 

Thanks! Pip

Pip if you are building the Italeri Wessex you might need to reverse the direction of rotation on the tail rotor, mine, a HU5 has the tail rotor going anti-clockwise seen from the port side.

 

The pictures here show that is wrong as well as all those in my archive collection.

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2 hours ago, perdu said:

Pip if you are building the Italeri Wessex you might need to reverse the direction of rotation on the tail rotor, mine, a HU5 has the tail rotor going anti-clockwise seen from the port side.

 

The pictures here show that is wrong as well as all those in my archive collection.

Thanks for the tip, perdu.

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23 hours ago, stalal said:

Does anyone have picture of the leading edge of the rotor? It seems there is a thicker coating on the edge. I want to know what it is and its pattern. 

 

Stalal, the leading edge of the rotor blade is covered in black neoprene rubber. There is no pattern as such, but we did cover the neoprene in a sacrificial tape.  This tape was like a very thick sellotape and was cut into lengths and applied on the leading edge.

From memory, each tape section was roughly 250 -300 mm in length and there was a gap between each tape section - this may be the "pattern" you are referring to.

 

It was horrible stuff to remove. In the monsoon season that tape looked like someone had fired a shotgun at it and you had to get every little fragment of the old stuff cleaned off before you could fit the new section.

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17 hours ago, Pat C said:

And some versions instructions have you put the bulged cabin window in the wrong window too 😀

 

👍

 

As Pat says you need to be very sure of what you intend building.

 

Get lots of photographs, Italeri build nice beginnings but there is always lots to rectify.

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On 12/2/2021 at 7:36 AM, hendie said:

 

Stalal, the leading edge of the rotor blade is covered in black neoprene rubber. There is no pattern as such, but we did cover the neoprene in a sacrificial tape.  This tape was like a very thick sellotape and was cut into lengths and applied on the leading edge.

From memory, each tape section was roughly 250 -300 mm in length and there was a gap between each tape section - this may be the "pattern" you are referring to.

 

It was horrible stuff to remove. In the monsoon season that tape looked like someone had fired a shotgun at it and you had to get every little fragment of the old stuff cleaned off before you could fit the new section.

 

Hendie, one more question. 

 

Did the Cyprus based green and grey helicopter have one of the rotor blades painted yellow?

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2 hours ago, stalal said:

 

Hendie, one more question. 

 

Did the Cyprus based green and grey helicopter have one of the rotor blades painted yellow?

 

Sorry stalal, I can't help you there. My only experience of Wessex was in Hong Kong so I have no idea about how they were configured in Cyprus

 

 

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The MRBs are different colours on each side of the cab because before folding, the port side blades had to be rotated so that the leading edge fitted into the blade saddles.

Therefore when folded, you are looking at the top surface(green) o the stbd side and the lower surface (black) on the port side

 

HTH

 

Mike

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