Armstrong Whitworth AW.66 and AW.65 projects

[hesham]

Hi,

The Armstrong Whitworth AW.65 was in early concept with bi-tail
and the AW.670 Airbus air ferry aircraft projects.


Source; Flightglobal

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

AW stuff source:

http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1958/1958-1-%20-%200616.pdf

Not so hard is it?

 

[zebedee]

Not so hard is it?

One thing that always surprises me about the Argosy is the Shackleton wing... its there in black and white but whenever I tell anyone about they look at me as if im mad... My abiding memory of the argosy is clambering over the wreck of XN819 on the fire dump at Finningly in the early eighties...

Zeb

 

[Jemiba]

Although known and shown for example in "Stuck On The Drawing Board",
the AW 670, derivative of the Argosy, was shown in Flugwelt 6/1961
with a fixed landing gear :

 

[hesham]

Hi,

I spoke before about this project,it was Armstrong Whitworth
AW.66,and in Flightglobal the AW.65 after the developments
for it,and from Argosyair site;
Late in 1955 AWA came up with a design designated AW 66. This was a high wing monoplane with the tail surfaces carried on two closely spaced booms growing out upper sides of the fuselage. At the rear there was a floor level hinged door suitable for both air dropping and ground loading. It had an all up weight in the region of 65,000 lbs. and was powered by two 3,000 hp prop jets. While working on the design of the AW66, extensive market research was carried out. This indicated that there was a potential market for a similar civil aircraft. To meet the civil requirement a revised design was developed, designated AW 65. While the requirement for air dropping disappeared, the need for both front and rear ground loading through full section doors appeared.

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1958/1958-1-%20-%200616.html?search=armstrong%20AW
http://www.argosyair.co.uk/introduction.html

 

[hesham]

From Ailes 12/1957,

and first time to hear about AW.661.

 

[Schneiderman]

The AW numbering system for the 600 series projects runs in tens, 650, 660, 670 and so on. Intermediate numbers were then for modified versions of aircraft and projects , so AW661 is just AW660(Military Argosy) re-engined with Tynes.

 

[hesham]

From Ailes 15/11/1958,

the AW.670.

 

[zebedee]

Some more Argosy variants... from an original brochure for the AW650 series "Freightliner"... the Dart powered AW650 and twin Tyne powered AW651...

Of note is the different undercarriage and cockpit arrangement from the final design...

Zeb

 

[hesham]

From Interavia 1961,

a V/STOL Argosy.

 

[zebedee]

Doing some re-touching with a new version of Lightroom and its AI tools and have managed to rescue a photo I took on 2016 of the AW66...

Armstrong Whitworth AW66 by Martin Winchester, on Flickr

Zeb