Westland WG.34 Evolution

[Antonio]

On Aviation Magazine International Number 764 15-10-1979 I have found a reference on page 63 about Westland WG.34.
Described as an Italo-British replacement for the "Sea King" powered by General Electric T-700 engines. I'm almost sure that this WG.34 is the Merlin but anybody can confirm this?
BTW, anybody has drawings from that projects in its early stage. I have little information about the Merlin origins.

Thanks in advance

 

[Jemiba]

From Aviation Week 1978 19-25 :

 

[Antonio]

Thank you very much Jemiba

Mmm..twin engined, looks quite different from the final product

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Source:

Aircraft Illustrated, Feb 1979

 

[Jemiba]

Was proposed as a SaKing replacement in the ASW role, too:
(fromAIR INTERNATIONAL .3.79)

 

[alertken]

via loss of a couple of Cabinet Ministers and a flirtation with Agusta gunships and with Blackhawks, became Merlin.

 

[Stargazer]

A beautiful three-view of the Westland WG.34 project:

 

[uk 75]

In the excellent Admiralty and the Helicopter book there is much information about the Westland WG34 including the various artists impressions and various general arrangement drawings.
I have been finding it hard to marry the gas to the impressions. In particular the very sleek Seahawk like version.
Can anyone else with the book or James help me out? As you can guess I am thinking of getting a model done.

 

[Hood]

No problem, happy to help anytime, PM inbound.

 

[uk 75]

My replacement copy of James Jackson's excellent slim volume THE ADMIRALTY AND THE HELICOPTER arrived today (my original is buried somewhere inside another RN book).
It confirms what I was thinking.



These often used images cited as being the WG34 are in fact WG31 designs which evolved into WG34 in 1978.

The illustration above from a magazine via a website seems to be the WG34A DTV demonstrator for the WG34.
After Italy and the UK agreed to cooperate this design evolved into the EH101

 

[Pioneer]

Looks like the EH-101 became somewhat bigger and heavier than the WG34?


Regards
Pioneer

 

[Hood]

Looks like the EH-101 became somewhat bigger and heavier than the WG34?

WG.31 began at 24,000lb AUW, grew to 26,500lb as the design matured. EH101 was heavier as the Italians wanted a bigger payload.

As to uk75's post, I haven't seen the definitive 'final' WG.34 design. Its clear now from my research that the press illustrations were WG.31 models and studies that Westland released. Its worth adding that the WG.34A was not the WG.34, the only bit that was pure WG.34 was the engine and transmission area.

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

No problem, happy to help anytime, PM inbound.

The WG.34 was a proposed derivative of the WG.27 anti-submarine with three General Electric T700 turboshafts and an all-up weight of 27,000 lb. A planned transmission testbed for the WG.34, the WG.34A Dynamic Test Vehicle, had three T700s, but was not completed before the WG.34 program was cancelled in October 1980.


This image above is of the WG.34.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

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It is tricky trying to match the drawings to the Westland WG numbers, particularly when the scanned drawing is just a drawing. Wally Joiner did a lot of work on the Loadmaster (WG.29) that developed into the WG.34 via a lot of variations. Along the way it took on twin tail rotors whose superiority in that respect is probably only fully understood by Alan Brocklehurst, the WHL tail rotor guru. He was the year behind me at Cranfield; a great glider pilot and very keen aeromodeller. Anyway, this drawing (despite only having four main rotor blades) is probably consistent with the start of the WG34 since another version sprouts early BERP rotor blades (pre-anhedral tips). It was BERP that allowed the eventual EHI - 01 to have the same rotor planform as the Sea King, yet operate at a much higher aum

I think the twin tail rotors were all about fitting into a box. Always a driver on ships!

yes...but tail fold would have been a pain in the rear orifice with this one. Hangar height would have been ok though. Maybe more suited for oil rig ops since that was a driver in those days.

Probably an attempt to avoid tail fold - but ultimately more complicated.

yes...we would have to draw up the Heinz options sometimes just to show the infeasibility. But the twin tail rotor concept still had its proponents even into the 1990s. My background was more supersonics so I was constantly puzzled and invariably asked awkward questions.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

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Westland Multi-role Fleet Helicopter circa 1978 so before my time. An eccentric tailboom made sense in this project (is there anything that is not eccentric with helicopters?). From the WG projects file. We made small scale scans of the big original drawings before they were disposed of (an unpopular edict from above), and I don't think the reports survived. Later (in the 1990s) I returned to the eccentric back end for a rather stealthy project (which was so stealthy that any drawings unsurprisingly seem to have vanished).

Drawn by Wally Joiner, a great pre designer who moved to Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth soon after this, where I worked alongside him for 20 years.

Thanks...I had heard about him but since I didn't join WHL until 1984 I never had the chance to meet him.

The WG file was set up by John Jupe who collected together the GAs and made a rough listing with some references to reports. John had been Head of Future Projects but took a step back when Ron Smith took over. That was about the time when I joined (1984) and shared an office with John. John retired a couple of years later and the file just lay stagnant since we were off our feet with a lot of project work. I took over as Future Projects when Ron left and tried to bring the list up to date but, by then and after a couple of office moves, a lot had been lost. The file itself is a box of loose A4 drawings so it is easy for them to go out of sequence. I made a couple of sets of the file but after my 'sabbatical' year at AIRBUS ('97/98) found that my carefully curated archive had largely disappeared, including the reference projects file. One set may be at the Helicopter Museum at Weston Super Mare.

Jeremy Graham dug out what he labelled as a WG.27 from the Yeovil archive for me a couple of years back, presumably it may have come from that box of drawings. When I'm home I'll post it for comparison. I must agree though, determining the exact WG27/31/34 sequence is not easy due to that lack of documentation.

My apologies, it was not WG.27 but labelled as WG.31.

 

[MDF1]

Sorry to drag up an older thread! Can anyone confirm how advanced the WG34a was when the project was cancelled? Was this a ground test rig or was it intended to fly?