Friends of The Helicopter Museum

Westland Wessex 60, G-AVNE, History and Restoration

Wessex 60 History Westland built sixteen Wessex 60s, based on the RAF's HC.2 model, for Bristow Helicopters, between 1965 and 1975, to replace some of the Widgeons and Whirlwinds in their fleet, which serviced the expanding UK and overseas offshore oil and gas exploration sector. The seventh Westland Wessex Series 60 to be built, G-AVNE, Con.No. WA/561, a 16 passenger civil transport with twin 1350 shp Rolls-Royce Gnome H1200, Mk.660, turboshaft engines, was delivered to Bristow, at Redhill, in 1967. It was the first long-range Series 60 and, soon after delivery, was despatched to Sunderland, N.E. England, where it operated in support of one of the early offshore oil rigs, 'Glomar IV'.

In 1970 G-AVNE was flown out to Kuantan, in Malaysia, and transferred to Bristow's Far East operations, serving successively in Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and back to Malaysia, each time with appropriate re-registration. It returned to the UK in 1973.

In 1974 G-AVNE was transferred to the Warri base in Nigeria, again to support offshore oil rigs. It was re-registered as 5N-AJL and remained in Nigeria until 1981 when, following three unexplained accidents to Wessex 60s, it was withdrawn from service and returned, via Redhill, to Westland in Weston-super-Mare. In 1987, following three years in storage at Hurn Airport near Bournemouth, G-AVNE was bought by The Helicopter Museum for static display at the Museum (right), which, at that time, was sited adjacent to the Westland factory in Weston-super-Mare.

Wessex 60 Restoration



G-AVNE was rolled, from the Display Hangar, into the new Conservation & Engineering Hangar on 12th January 2008 (above left). Its restoration was entrusted to Mike Reading's team while they were still nearing completion of their work on Westland Whirlwind HAR.10, XD163. The unexpected delay in the completion of XD163 meant that work on G-AVNE didn't start until 23rd February, when the nose-mounted debris filter was removed (above centre) and the erection of staging was started (above right), to allow safe access to the main rotor head and gearbox.

		By early March 2008 the usual structural survey had started. Corrosion was found to be widespread though often superficial. Severe corrosion was evident in a few of the airframe skin panels and a number of these will have to be replaced. Some of the alloy rivet heads were in a very poor condition and many steel nuts and bolts were rusted (left). The folded main rotor blades were removed, on 29th March, and this task was made easier with the use of a puller tool to extract the securing taper pins which were corroded. It was fortunate that, with the main blades having been displayed in their folded state for several years, only some of the pins were still in place. The tail rotor blades had been easily detached after a few weeks soaking of the securing pins in WD-40 (below left).



Fortunately a crane was available, on 29th March 2008, to assist with steadying main rotor blades after detachment and with the subsequent lowering of the blades to the ground. After removal of the all-metal blades G-AVNE was rotated through 180 degrees before being pushed back into the conservation bay, nose-out and alongside the Wessex HAS.3, XM328, which has been in the new Engineering Hangar since mid-2007.

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