Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter

The Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter was a small side-by-side two-seat helicopter designed for reconnaissance and casualty evacuation to a British Ministry of Supply requirement of 1953 for a low-cost rotorcraft that could travel on an Army three-ton truck. It had no tail rotor, because tip jets burning fuel at the ends of the rotor blades turned the rotor, fed with compressed air from a Blackburn built Turbomeca Palouste engine. The first prototype flew on 14 August 1955 and appeared at the Farnborough show that September. The type fell victim to defence economies and competition from the Saunders-Roe Skeeter, no orders came, and Fairey shelved it to concentrate on the Rotodyne.