Westland Wyvern TF1 Fleet Air Arm Museum Yeovilton Somerset. XAV 1400-307
Concurrent with the TF1 was the TF2, intended from the start to have a turbo-prop powerplant & prototypes were ordered with the RR Clyde & Armstrong Siddeley Python. The duplication of effort in designing & testing versions with different power plants resulted in too many delays & when in 1947, RR ceased development of the Clyde, the Python became, by default, the power plant of choice. The Python was bigger than the Clyde & it was this that resulted in the Wyvern’s “humped back” appearance (the engine was below the cockpit). The Python drove a pair of contra-rotating four bladed props & jet exhausts were situated amidships above the wing roots. The definitive service version was the Wyvern S4 with the “S” for “strike”. Although always capable of carrying a torpedo, experience during WW2 had led to the belief that no aircraft could hope to get within torpedo dropping range of any major modern enemy warship. Accordingly, the “torpedo fighter” became extinct in the FAA after the Blackburn Firebrand. Reckoned to be a handful on or near the carrier deck, the Wyvern was however thought to be an excellent aircraft to fly & capable of packing a tremendous punch with 4 x 20mm cannon, bombs, rockets & mines. Only four FAA units received Wyverns starting in May 1953 with 813NAS, then 827NAS. In 1955, both units were disbanded & two more (830 & 831 NAS) were commissioned in their places. It was 830 NAS that took the Wyvern to war in the Suez where it performed well although a couple were lost to flak with their pilots ejecting safely. Curiously, 813 NAS was reformed in 1956 & operated the Wyvern until it was phased out in 1958. Westland Wyvern TF1 VR137 - Westland Wyvern TF1 Built at Yeovil in 1947 as the last TF1 pre-production aircraft,to ~ Never flown ~ 30/11/50 - By road to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield as a training aid ~ 1/5/54 - Noted at Cranfield during Air Britain tour - in bare metal with just '137' on side of fuselage ~ 5/63 -
Size: 5288px × 3512px
Location: Fleet Air, Arm Museum, Yeovilton. Somerset. England. United Kingdom.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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