AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 63 / 115

Plate 63 of 115 · Early jet age · Light observation and training helicopter

Bell 47 Sioux

Sioux AH.1, painted as XT200, a Westland-Bell 47G-3B-1 Sioux AH.1 light observation and training helicopter of the Army Air Corps, built by Westland under licence from Bell and powered by a turbocharged Lycoming TVO-435 flat six, kept by Newark Air Museum and painted as it is shown there as ‘F’: Army disruptive olive green and light earth camouflage with a green lower bowl and earth rear-cabin panels crossed by a green diagonal band, olive tubular boom, skids and tail, a Type D roundel and a black unit crest edged in yellow on each rear-cabin panel, a yellow triangle on each door post, a yellow-orange band round the goldfish-bowl canopy, a large black ‘F’ outlined in white on the starboard front of the bubble, grey canvas covers over the saddle tanks stencilled ‘ARMY’ in black and a red DANGER placard on the ventral plate; it is shown on its skids without ground-handling wheels, as displayed, the starboard markings follow an older photograph, the serial is not painted because no photograph shows it legibly and the engine bay is simplified.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as XT200, a Westland-Bell 47G-3B-1 Sioux AH.1 light observation and training helicopter of the Army Air Corps, built by Westland under licence from Bell and powered by a turbocharged Lycoming TVO-435 flat six, kept by Newark Air Museum and painted as it is shown there as ‘F’: Army disruptive olive green and light earth camouflage with a green lower bowl and earth rear-cabin panels crossed by a green diagonal band, olive tubular boom, skids and tail, a Type D roundel and a black unit crest edged in yellow on each rear-cabin panel, a yellow triangle on each door post, a yellow-orange band round the goldfish-bowl canopy, a large black ‘F’ outlined in white on the starboard front of the bubble, grey canvas covers over the saddle tanks stencilled ‘ARMY’ in black and a red DANGER placard on the ventral plate; it is shown on its skids without ground-handling wheels, as displayed, the starboard markings follow an older photograph, the serial is not painted because no photograph shows it legibly and the engine bay is simplified. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (594 KB)

Data plate

Specification

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

History

The Sioux AH.1

The Bell 47 grew out of Arthur Young’s experiments with small rotor models in the late 1930s. Bell Aircraft took him on in 1941, and his Model 30 prototypes worked out the two-blade teetering rotor with a weighted stabiliser bar beneath it, which kept the helicopter steady without constant correction from the pilot. The production Model 47 first flew on 8 December 1945, and on 8 March 1946 it became the first helicopter to be certificated for civil use in the United States. Its simple layout set the pattern for a generation: a cabin under a big moulded bubble, the engine exposed behind it, an open steel-tube tail boom and a pair of skids.

The US Army and Air Force bought it as the H-13 Sioux, and in Korea H-13s carrying wounded soldiers in litters strapped to their skids flew thousands of casualties from the front to the mobile army surgical hospitals, the image later made famous by M*A*S*H. Bell kept improving the type, and the 47G-3B-1 of the early 1960s added a turbocharged Lycoming engine for hot and high work, a wider three-seat cabin, bigger saddle fuel tanks and a longer tail boom. Bell and its licensees, Agusta in Italy, Westland in Britain and Kawasaki in Japan, built some 5,600 Bell 47s before production ended in the 1970s.

In 1964 the 47G-3B-1 won the British Army’s light helicopter competition to replace the Saunders-Roe Skeeter, and it entered Army Air Corps service as the Sioux AH.1 in 1965. The first fifty were supplied by Agusta and the rest built by Westland, and the RAF’s Central Flying School took a version as the Sioux HT.2. The Sioux trained a generation of Army pilots at Middle Wallop and flew reconnaissance, liaison and casualty work in Germany, Borneo, Aden, Cyprus and Northern Ireland, its crews calling it the ‘clockwork mouse’. The Gazelle replaced it, and the last Sioux left Army service in 1978.

This airframe

Sioux AH.1 XT200 “F”

XT200The airframe modelled

XT200 is a Westland-built Sioux AH.1, construction number WA359, one of the batch delivered to the Army Air Corps in the mid-1960s. It has been at Newark Air Museum since at least the early 1990s and is displayed there in Army disruptive camouflage as “F”. The model shows it as photographed at Newark in 2020: olive green and light earth, with a green lower bowl and earth rear-cabin panels crossed by a green diagonal band, the olive tubular boom, skids and tail, a Type D roundel and a black crest edged in yellow low on each rear-cabin panel, a yellow triangle on each door post, a yellow-orange band round the bubble, a large black “F” outlined in white on the starboard front of the bubble, and grey canvas covers over the saddle tanks stencilled “ARMY”. It stands on its skids without the ground-handling wheels, as displayed. The starboard markings follow an older photograph, the serial is not painted because no photograph shows it clearly, and the engine bay is simplified.

See it at Newark Air Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Sioux AH.1 in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 115 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.