Westland Wisp

The Westland Wisp was a small British unmanned coaxial helicopter built by Westland Helicopters at Yeovil, Somerset, in 1976 as a remotely piloted observation platform. It belonged to the WG-25 programme that Westland launched in 1971 to carry television cameras and other sensors for aerial surveillance work for the Army, the police and other authorities. Its coaxial, contra-rotating main rotors needed no tail rotor, and a spheroid body holding two five horsepower Korba two-stroke engines let the camera scan through 360 degrees. The Wisp was a scaled-up version of the one-off Mote, which had been built from model helicopter parts and flown in 1975. Three Wisps were built, with a view to surveillance use in Northern Ireland, and the first flew on 2 December 1976. Trials in 1977 showed the payload to be limited, and the larger Wideye took over the work. The first Wisp is displayed at the Helicopter Museum at Weston-super-Mare, and another has been shown at the Museum of Army Flying.