Description
Westland Wasp HAS.1 International service. Complete plastic kit with 4 decal options (2x Royal Navy, 1x Royal Netherlands Navy, 1x Royal New Zealand Navy) including (3D-Printed) parts.
Westland’s Wasp can trace its origins to the mid-1950s and a private venture initiated by Saunders-Roe – for a light helicopter to replace its piston-engined SARO P.531 Skeeter, which first flew in 1958. The Skeeter proved useful to the Army but had severe limitations in payload and particularly, its operability in ‘hot and high’ environments. Significant progress only became truly viable with the development of small gas turbine turbo-shaft engines, initially in France, where the 360hp Turbomeca Artouste appeared first in the Aérospatiale Alouette II, revolutionising helicopter design.
The Alouette’s success sparked interest in the UK, to the extent that the Blackburn Engine Company quickly obtained a licence agreement to build and develop the Turbomeca powerplants. The resulting Blackburn-Turbomeca 603 of 325shp was a key element, allowing the development of a light helicopter that would outperform the Skeeter significantly. In fact, Westland’s initial design and development of the light helicopter was for a land-based replacement of the Skeeter for the Army, named Scout.
