Some complementary info...
The story of Westland Helicopters vertical take off and landing UAV (VTUAV) program began around 1967-68. A small team was set up at that time to see what a future battlefield surveillance / surveillance / observation vehicle might look like. It soon concluded that a small VTUAV was the way to go; piloted helicopters, however small and agile, were just too vulnerable. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) was quite intrigued by the idea. It issued a preliminary specification in 1971.
Unwilling to wait until the purpose-built TV camera was ready, Westland Helicopters designed and built, over a period of eight or so months, a proof of concept prototype fitted with numerous off the shelf aeromodelling components, including, it seemed, its two counter-rotating rotors and two piston engines. This Westland WR-05 Mote made its first flight (tethered or free) in June or July 1975. It worked well enough, as a proof of concept prototype without any useful load, but the addition of some sort of gyro increased the weight, which greatly reduced its flying abilities.
Even so, the MoD was so impressed that it put up money to develop a larger design that would be closer to an operational daylight-only VTUAV it might use in Northern Ireland. The first of three WR-06 Wisps made its first flight in December 1976. Within a year, the British military and / or Westland Helicopters concluded that the payload of the new VTUAV was too small. A production version known as the Vista (Visual intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition) therefore did not proceed beyond the design stage.
Designed in 1975, the Westland Pupil was a more powerful VTUAV which was to be fitted with two counter-rotating rotor and a single model aircraft piston engine, not to mention a black and white television camera. Given that much of the research work it was to carry had been done with the Wisps, the Pupil project was abandoned in 1977.
Westland Helicopters kept at it though and new design, based on the Pupil, the WR-07 Wideye, to fulfil a new British Army program, the Medium Range Unmanned Aircraft Surveillance and Target Acquisition System, a program later renamed Supervisor. Originally designed for use with a small turboshaft engine, that battlefield reconnaissance / surveillance VTUAV was eventually powered by a pair of piston engines. A prototype flew for the first time in August 1978. Westland Helicopters received a contract to build three or four more Wideyes but control of that overweight and oversized VTUAV was still problematic when the program was cancelled, in December 1979. It looks as if only one Wideye was actually built.
The company later developed a stealthy VTUAV based on its earlier work. This WR-09 Sharpeye was abandoned, in the early to mid ’80s, before an actual prototype was built. That said, a full scale wind tunnel model of that VTUAV was made. It might, I repeat might, be the vehicle in a photo above, the one which carries the serial ZS782.
Mind you, Westland Helicopters also took part in a MoD UAV competition around that time. Its thoroughly re-redesigned WR-10 proposal was successful during the first round of the competition but was not chosen to take part in flight trials. No prototype was actually built.
In 1990, Martin Marietta approached the company see if it was interested in jointly developing a new VTUAV. A Wideye was duly assembled using spare parts and shipped to California. It was test flown in 1991 but no further development ensued.
In the late 1970s or early 1980, Westland Helicopters’ chief project engineer for UAVs joined a small British company, M.L. Aviation. The MoD remained interested in acquiring a VTUAV similar to the Wideye but did not wish to help the new project team too much. Design of a VTUAV with a pair of contra-rotating rotors powered by two piston engines began in early 1981. The first Sprite (Surveillance Patrol Reconnaissance Intelligence Target designation Electronic warfare) was flight tested in 1983.
In 1988, a Sprite was tested on a rolling platform used to simulate the deck of a ship in heavy seas. The U.S. Navy was sufficiently intrigued to organize sea trials. A Sprite thus flew off the aft deck of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter / patrol vessel, in the spring of 1989. Better yet, M.L. Aviation received a seemingly firm order from the Swedish army for 130 Sprites. Sadly, the company went into liquidation after delivering a couple of VTUAVs. Even though interest seemingly remained high within the MoD and in foreign countries, no further production took place. All in all, a dozen or so Sprites were apparently built.
As was mentioned in another series of messages, with its numerous ups and downs, the quarter century story of the Westland Helicopters and M.L. Aviation VTUAVs oddly resembles the 35-year saga of the Canadair and Bombardier VTUAV projects (CL-227, CL-227 Sentinel, CL-327 Guardian).
