Sud Aviation / Aérospatiale Alouette 2 Light helicopter. GAV 2274-237
The Alouette II is a light helicopter originally manufactured by Sud Aviation and later Aérospatiale of France. The Alouette II has the honour of being the first helicopter that used a gas turbine instead of a conventional heavier piston engine. It was mostly used for military purposes in observation, photography, air/sea rescue, liaison and training but it has also carried anti-tank missiles and homing torpedoes. As a civilian helicopter it was put to use as a casualty evacuation (with two external stretcher panniers), crop-spraying and flying crane (with a 500kg external sling load). Although Sud-Est's previous helicopter design, the Alouette, broke helicopter speed and distance records in July 1953, it was too complex an aircraft to market successfully. With the records falling, the French government started showing interest but with their financial backing the state gave an ultimatum that within 2 years a helicopter had to be in production otherwise all activities around rotary wings would cease! SNCASE came up with 7 turbo-engine helicopters designs: - Earlier Joseph Szydlowski, the founder of Turboméca had successfully managed to develop the Artouste, a 260 hp single shaft turbine engine derived from his Orédon turbine. The design was chosen and together with the Artouste engine was fast tracked towards production as the Alouette II. The SE-3130, first flew on March 12 1955 and within 3 months a pre-series Alouette II flown by Jean Boulet set a new helicopter altitude record of 8,209 m on June 6 then on June 13 pushed the record even further to 10,984 m. The Alouette II made the news on July 3 1956 when it became the first helicopter to perform a mountain-rescue by evacuating a mountaineer who had suffered from cardiac arrest at over 4,000 m and again on January 3 1957 the Alouette II was called upon to rescue the crew of a crashed Sikorsky S-58 which was searching for missing mountaineers Jean Vincendon and François Henry
Size: 4142px × 5919px
Location: Laggan, Newtonmore. Inverness-shire. Highland Region. Scotland. United Kingdom.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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