AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 66 / 83

Plate 66 of 83 · Cold War · Twin-boom tactical freighter

Armstrong Whitworth Argosy C.1

Argosy C.1, painted as XP411, the RAF Museum’s Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy C.1 (c/n 6766), built at Bitteswell and first flown in April 1962, flown to Aden with No. 105 Squadron that summer and later with Nos. 114 and 267 Squadrons, retired in 1975 and used for ground training at Cosford as 8442M before joining the museum, now in the National Cold War Exhibition at RAF Museum Midlands, a twin-boom tactical freighter with four Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops, the weather-radar nose and the rear clamshell doors, which are shown open as it is displayed, painted in the scheme it carries today: gloss white upper fuselage, booms and fins over light grey undersides, a faded fluorescent red-orange band along the cabin windows and round the nose behind the black radome, a black anti-glare panel under the windscreen, red-orange stripes along the booms, Type D roundels on the outer sides of the booms, a black ‘XP411’ near each fin, red-orange panels above the fin flashes, red-orange outer wing panels and tailplane, roundels and ‘XP411’ under the wings, natural-metal nacelles and spinners and grey propeller blades with red and white tips.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as XP411, the RAF Museum’s Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy C.1 (c/n 6766), built at Bitteswell and first flown in April 1962, flown to Aden with No. 105 Squadron that summer and later with Nos. 114 and 267 Squadrons, retired in 1975 and used for ground training at Cosford as 8442M before joining the museum, now in the National Cold War Exhibition at RAF Museum Midlands, a twin-boom tactical freighter with four Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops, the weather-radar nose and the rear clamshell doors, which are shown open as it is displayed, painted in the scheme it carries today: gloss white upper fuselage, booms and fins over light grey undersides, a faded fluorescent red-orange band along the cabin windows and round the nose behind the black radome, a black anti-glare panel under the windscreen, red-orange stripes along the booms, Type D roundels on the outer sides of the booms, a black ‘XP411’ near each fin, red-orange panels above the fin flashes, red-orange outer wing panels and tailplane, roundels and ‘XP411’ under the wings, natural-metal nacelles and spinners and grey propeller blades with red and white tips. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.5 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Argosy C.1 modelled here.

History

The Argosy

Armstrong Whitworth designed the Argosy in the late 1950s as a freighter that could be loaded like a lorry. The fuselage was a short, square-sided pod slung beneath a high wing, with the tail carried on two slim booms, so that the hold could open at both ends and be loaded straight in from a truck bed. Four Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops, the engine of the Viscount, gave it a reliable, familiar power plant. The civil AW.650 prototype, G-AOZZ, first flew from Bitteswell on 8 January 1959, and the type found customers in the American Riddle Airlines, which flew freight for the US Air Force, and later British European Airways.

The RAF wanted a medium-range tactical transport for its overseas commands, and Armstrong Whitworth reworked the design as the AW.660. It had a stronger structure and floor, more powerful Darts, a solid nose with weather radar in place of the front loading door, and rear clamshell doors that could be opened in flight, the lower half hinging down and the upper half up, so that paratroops could jump and loads could be dropped by parachute. The first Argosy C.1, XN814, flew on 4 March 1961, and the RAF took 56. Nos. 114 and 267 Squadrons flew them from Benson, No. 105 Squadron from Khormaksar in Aden, No. 215 from Changi in Singapore and No. 70 from Akrotiri in Cyprus.

Its twin booms, stubby pod and the whine of its Darts earned it the nickname “Whistling Wheelbarrow”. From the late 1960s the Lockheed Hercules began to take over its work, and the Argosy was withdrawn from the transport squadrons in 1975 as an economy measure. Nine had already been converted to E.1s to calibrate airfield radio aids with No. 115 Squadron, which flew them until 1978, and two were converted as T.2 navigation trainers before that plan was dropped. Four survive in Britain: the C.1 XP411 at RAF Museum Midlands, the nose of C.1 XN819 at Newark Air Museum, and the civil Series 101s G-APRL at the Midland Air Museum and G-BEOZ at the East Midlands Aeropark.

This airframe

Argosy C.1 XP411

XP411The airframe modelled

XP411, construction number 6766, was built by Armstrong Whitworth at Bitteswell as one of the RAF’s 56 Argosies and first flew on 6 April 1962. It went to Benson at the end of May and on 1 June 1962 joined No. 105 Squadron, newly re-formed to take the Argosy overseas, flying out to Khormaksar in Aden with the squadron’s first aircraft. There it flew troops and supplies to exercises and up-country strips, dropped supplies and stood by for search and rescue. It later served with Nos. 114 and 267 Squadrons. Retired on 22 May 1975, it became the ground-training airframe 8442M at RAF Cosford and passed to the RAF Museum in 1987; some records give its later designation as T.1. It now stands in the National Cold War Exhibition at Cosford. The model shows it as photographed there between 1988 and 2019: gloss white upper fuselage, booms and fins over light grey undersides, a faded fluorescent red-orange band along the cabin windows and round the nose behind the black radome, a black anti-glare panel under the windscreen, red-orange stripes along the booms, Type D roundels on the outer sides of the booms, a black “XP411” near each fin, red-orange panels above the fin flashes, red-orange outer wing panels and tailplane, roundels and “XP411” under the wings, natural-metal nacelles and spinners, and the rear doors open as it is displayed.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum Midlands

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Argosy in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 83 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.