Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy
The Armstrong Whitworth Argosy ( AW650 and AW660 depending on the version ) is a British four -engined cargo aircraft with turboprop engine. Between the two world wars, the same manufacturer had already built under the name " Argosy " a passenger plane.
Development
Although the air freight business had experienced a continuous upturn of the late 1950s, succeeded Armstrong Whitworth (later Hawker Siddeley ) not to place the advanced design equipped with turboprop cargo plane with the name Argosy successful in the market. The project work was started in 1956, and two years later, on 8 January 1959 flew the first of ten machines of the series 101
The Argosy has a large cargo deck with a pressurized cabin, which can be loaded from the front and from the rear. The cockpit is located in an elevated position above the cargo deck. Since the total development costs had to be borne by the factory, you took over reasons of economy, the wings of enlightenment bomber Avro Shackleton and the engine nacelles of Vickers Viscount 800
As launch customer, Riddle Airlines issued from the United States for the time being a par- four aircraft provisional order, which was soon converted into a rose to seven copies of firm order. End of 1960, the British European Airways ( BEA ), more to get into the air cargo business decided, and acquired the remaining three aircraft as Argosy 102
Unlike the 101 series, the BEA machines were windowless and equipped with a Rolamat - loading system for pallet transport. Riddle took the Argosy 101 in January 1961 into operation, followed by BEA in December of the same year. Meanwhile, an improved Argosy had been projected 200 in May 1961. This useful both for the passenger as well as freight transport option received as a substantial change completely revised wing with greater durability. The first Argosy 200 flew on 11 March 1964. According to the replacement of the engines previously used by more powerful Dart 532/1 of 2230 ever WPS ( 1640.1 WkW ) received this version of the type name Argosy 222
Six machines of this version were built for BEA, which she first began in February 1965. For this, the airline gave back their three copies of the 102 series of the manufacturer. After availability of the larger Aviation Traders V.953C Merchantman (conversion of Vickers V.950 Vanguard ) BEA sold their relatively expensive to be operated Argosy fleet in 1970 to the Canadian airline Transair. Thus, only 17 civilian Argosy aircraft were built and the production ended on October 30, 1966 with delivery of the recent Argosy 222 at the BEA. In Europe, the Argosy was most recently in 1985 at the UK express freight company Elan Air in use. But most of Argosy found their way to Australia and New Zealand, where they were used by the airlines IPEC and SAFE Air until 1992.
Largest operator of the Argosy was the Transport Command of the Royal Air Force, which from 1961 had a total of 56 machines under the designation Argosy C Mk.1 as a standard medium-range transporter in use until the decommissioning of the end of 1975.
Variants
- A.W.650 - Civilian variants
- A.W.660 - Military variants
Military use
- Royal Air Force