Modern-Aviation

Failing to sell the helicopter to the Royal Navy as an Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft, Bristol didn’t see any reason to radically change their design. So, they didn’t and sold it to the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a transport helicopter instead, despite a massively tall undercarriage designed to accommodate torpedoes. To be fair the RAF don’t seem to have thought to ask for any changes either.

This left troops trying to board through a door four feet off the ground as the fuselage was still high enough to allow torpedoes to be loaded on the underside. Which turned out not to be a major requirement in the jungles of Borneo due to the paucity of submarines. Taking a leaf out of Yakovlev’s book, Bristol put the engines at either end of the cabin.

Going one further, they positioned the rear one in the fuselage, precluding the use of a loading ramp. Meanwhile, the one at the other end blocked access to the cockpit, which was probably a smart move but was ultimately defeated by installing a bulge on the left of the fuselage.

To make matters more interesting for the pilot the engines were started with AVPIN a substance which helpfully doesn’t need oxygen to burn and will happily do so if mishandled. This left them with the choice of squeezing back past the on-fire engine compartment or jumping to the ground and breaking an ankle.