Rotodyne Trials

Brussels, 1960


Inspired by IanKeenan's recent screenshot post.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v…

XE521, the sole flying prototype of the Fairey Rotodyne Y, lands on arriving at the Brussels City Heliport on its testflight from London.

The Fairey Rotodyne was a Compound Gyrodyne airliner - an aircraft which could take off as a helicopter, yet used both its main rotor and conventional wings to achieve lift during flight.  The British aircraft manufacturer Fairey experimented with the concept in the 1940s and 1950s, eventually resulting in the Rotodyne, a prototype for both a civilian and military aircraft.  Despite its promising concept, continuing problems with the propulsion system (and excessive noise) meant that no orders were forthcoming, and eventually led to the concept being dropped in 1962 by Westland, the company which had absorbed Fairey in 1960.  XE521, the sole prototype, was subsequently broken up for scrap.

The Brussels City Heliport (Brussels Groendreef Heliport) was opened in 1953 on the location of the former Brussels-Groendreef station, the first train station to serve the city of Brussels (1835 - 1954).  This heliport was run by the Belgian state airline SABENA, who had run postal helicopter services since 1950, and who expanded it into a fully-fledged helicopter passenger service in 1953.  At its height, in 1958, the SABENA helicopter network served destinations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and France; trial flights were also made to destinations in Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.  However, lack of capacity on the airline's helicopter fleet, together with the high maintenance costs and mediocre revenues, led to these helicopter services being abandoned in the fall of 1966.

Flight Simulator 2004/FS9 by and (c) Microsoft
Fairey Rotodyne Y by Kazunori Ito
Brussels City Heliport 1961 scenery available from the California Classic Propliners website