Modern-Aviation

When the British Westland Wasp carried the rather alarming WE177A nuclear depth charge, it needed to remove its doors to meet the range requirement. Despite this, the Westland Wasp avoids being on this list because it is probably the only Anti-Submarine Warfare helicopter to have damaged a submarine, making you wonder what the rest of them have been doing with their time.

With a maximum take-off mass lower than the Wasp’s empty weight, the A106 was truly small; at 1400kg fully loaded, it weighs less than most cars today. This weight was achieved by only providing seating for one pilot, while two Mk 44 torpedoes could be hung under the fuselage, at this point, you must ask how much of the 800kg payload remained available for fuel.

The absence of any other crew would have limited the A106 to carrying its payload where it was told to and then dropping it. Hopefully someone is available to tell the pilot how to get back as well, as photos of the cockpit show it to be remarkably lacking in avionics.

It’s at this point you start to wonder if Agusta realised they had created a crewed version of the QH-50 DASH torpedo-carrying drone, which had already entered service two years before the 106’s first flight in 1965. In the end only the two prototype A106s were built.