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The Saunders-Roe Skeeter was a two-seat training and scout helicopter produced by Saunders-Roe ("Saro") of Cowes and Southampton, in the United Kingdom. The Skeeter has the distinction of being the first helicopter to be used by the British Army Air Corps. ==Design and development== In 1947 the Cierva Autogiro Company began work on the Cierva W.14 Skeeter, a small two-seat helicopter suitable for both civil use and as a military observation aircraft. The Skeeter was a single-engined helicopter of conventional configuration, with a 29 foot (8.84 metre) three-bladed main rotor and a three-bladed anti-torque rotor mounted at the end of a triangular section tailboom. The crew of two sat in a glazed cabin, with the engine, a 110 hp Jameson FF-1 air cooled horizontally opposed piston engine, mounted behind the crew and under the main rotor. A fixed tricycle undercarriage was fitted.〔London 1988, pp. 237, 239.〕〔''Flight'' 21 October 1948, pp. 477–478.〕 The first prototype Skeeter made its maiden flight at Eastleigh airfield on 10 October 1948. The helicopter proved to be underpowered, and the experimental Jameson engine was prone to overheating, so it was decided to develop a Mark 2 Skeeter, to be fitted with the well established de Havilland Gipsy Major 10, giving 145 hp (108 kW).〔London 1988, p. 239.〕 The Mark 2 was a larger aircraft had a different appearance.〔flight 1956 p355〕 The Skeeter 2 first flew on 15 November 1949, but it soon became apparent that it suffered from severe ground resonance problems that Cierva struggled to resolve, causing it to be destroyed during ground testing on 26 June 1950. Despite these problems, Cierva received an order from the Ministry of Supply for three improved Skeeters, (two Mark 3 and one Mark 4) for evaluation by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.〔London ''Air Enthusiast'' 1994, p. 3.〕 These three aircraft were not completed before Saunders-Roe took over the Cierva's facilities and development programmes in January 1951.〔Cierva's financial backer withdrew from helicopter development after the fatal crash of the Cierva Air Horse in mid-1950〕 In 1953 the Bombardier-engined Mark 3B was passed to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment. Testing showed that these aircraft remained underpowered and that the ground resonance problems had not been resolved, causing official interest to be suspended with Saunders-Roe undertaking a long series of company funded tested to identify the causes and to identify solutions to the problems.〔〔London 1988, pp. 239–242.〕 The solution involved a redesigned undercarriage and revised blade friction dampers on the rotor head. This allowed Saunders-Roe to finally demonstrate that the ground resonance problems had been fixed when the Skeeter Mark 5 was tested by the A&AEE in March 1954.〔''Flight'' 30 March 1956, p. 355.〕 This re-ignited official interest in the Skeeter, with an order for four Skeeter Mark 6s with 200 hp (149 kW) Gipsy Major 200 engines (designated AOP.10 and T.11 by the British armed forces) for evaluation, and finally production orders for 64 AOP.12s, with a 215 hp (160 kW) engine, were placed from 1956, with deliveries starting in 1958.〔London 1988, pp. 245–249.〕〔London ''Air Enthusiast'' 1994, pp. 4–5.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Saunders-Roe Skeeter」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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