French Attack Helicopters

Jemiba

Jemiba

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Apart from arming transport helicopters with pintle mounted machine guns and occasionally rockets, the first, more dedicated attack helicopter
I've found was the SA 3164 Alouette Canon, built in a single example,
as a moderate modification of a standard SA.316, armed with up to
four SS 11 and a bow mounted 20mm gun.
The anglo-french cooperation Aerospatiale and Westland brought several
projects for armed versions, which were intended for use for the french
army too. The layout of first armed version of the Lynx, proposed by
Westland in 1964, wasn't favoured in France, instead a cockpit with
side-by-side seating was adopted, although later designs featured
a tandem cockpit, too.
(from Aviation Week 5/68)
 

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A concept proposed in 1964, based on the SA-330 Puma was the
AAFSS, using the dynamical system of the Puma, but fitted with
a swivelling tail rotor which acted at higher speeds as a pusher prop,
as in the Sikorsky S-61F (from FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 1965).
As told in the AH-56 thread, I don't know if the concept from 1971,
based on the Puma was really influenced by the Cheyenne, or how
it fits into the french attck helicopter programs of this time.
In 1972 a SA.360 Dauphin was modified to the SA.361 for the
HCL program (Hélicoptère de Combat Léger) (from MiniDocavia N°9).
 

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The beginning of the german -french collaboration, which eventually
resulted in the Eurocopter Tiger, brought several designs from Aero-
spatiale and the participating german MBB, later merged into Eurocopter.
 

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I find it quite amusing how much the front end of the Tigre with the fenestron looks like Italy's Mangusta.......

A-129_03.jpg
 
.. and the tail with the fenestron looks quite similar to the Kawasaki OH-1 !
A typically case of "form follows function", I think .
 

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Armed WG13 variants side views here: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=324.0
 
Hi,

by the way, the Aerospatiale SA.330 means SA X-330
(in X series).
 
Difficult theme, I think. There actually were Sud-Aviation projects with X designations,
like the X-600 or X-910. But in this case, I'm not sure about the "X", as it a type based
on the SA-330. So a designation á la SA-33x or SA-33xx seems more probable to me,
or a completely new model number and then, maybe, during the early design stages
with an X. Designations given in the media for such types are often a windy affair !
 
My dear Jemiba,

for Aerospatiale,the new aircraft always get X series,such as
X-270 light aircraft,X-300 which became SA-340,X-330 attack
helicopter,X-350 Rotojet compound helicopter and X-380 experimental
helicopter from SA-365N.
unfortunatly,I saw X-280 on Internet before,but now I have not any
information about it.
 
My dear Jemiba,

also I mentioned the X-370 and X-375 helicopters in (french projects
aircraft after WW2) topic
 
Re: Westland WG-13 French Attack Helicopter project......

Dear Boys and Girls, here is a feature in French about the Westland WG-13 armed attack helicopter "project" designed for the Armée de Terre. Is is part of a larger article about all the proposed versions of the WG-13......

The feature comes from the 15th September 1968 issue of Aviation Magazine International......

Terry (Caravellarella)
 

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Very nice... but a Westland project in "French Attack Helicopters"?? This is misleading.
 
Stargazer2006 said:
Very nice... but a Westland project in "French Attack Helicopters"?? This is misleading.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but it's at the top of the topic and it was for a French requirement......
 
Hi all
This is French sa 3164
 

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from Icare 1967,

here is unknown Sud-Aviation attack helicopter Project ?.
 

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