INTERMEDIATE BUILD
Huw Morgan backdates Airfix’s 1/72 Commando HC.4 to replicate an airframe involved in a clandestine Falklands mission.
During the Falklands conflict in 1982, as almost two decades earlier in Vietnam, the helicopter proved its worth in versatility, flexibility, and go-anywhere capability, from shifting huge quantities of stores and men ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore, through anti-submarine patrols and aircrew rescue, to covert troop insertion and recovery on glaciers and airfields, the Gazelles, Wessex and Sea Kings showed their indispensability. More than 60 Westland Sea Kings of various versions deployed to the South Atlantic on Operation Corporate in the Falklands, being flown in excess of 5,550 sorties totalling nearly 12,000 flying hours and 8,613 deck landings, all in the space of just three months.
The history of the Sea King in UK use is entwined with the tumult in the UK’s aircraft industry, and its wider defence Industrial base in the decades immediately following World War Two. Westland emerged from the war with a distinctly mixed reputation for conventional aircraft, but in what appeared a master stroke at the time, it saw the potential in building helicopters under licence from US company Sikorsk…
