December 2011
Featured Story
  • Gazelle SA-341G
  • 1 December 2011

  • By Helen Krasner

  • I had always wanted to fly a Gazelle. Every pilot I had ever met who had tried one seemed to love it, speaking ecstatically of its speed and responsiveness. ‘The Ferrari of the skies’ seemed to be an often-quoted description. I was also curious as to how difficult these helicopters would be to fly. In the last few years there have been a number of well-publicised accidents involving Gazelles, and perhaps as a result of this they have acquired a reputation – at least among private pilots – for being slippery, challenging, and even perhaps unsafe. Loss of tail rotor effectiveness (LTE) has been cited as a possible cause of accidents, or at least something frequently speculated about. In any event, Gazelles seem to have acquired something of a reputation for biting the inexperienced or unwary. However, many military pilots did their basic helicopter training on these machines in the past, apparently with no problems.

    I wanted to find out the truth, and also to experience flying a Gazelle for myself. However, there just aren’t that many of them around these days. The Gazelle was always primarily a military helicopter, although Aerospatiale (now Eurocopter) did produce a small number of helicopters for civilian use. In addition, the MOD in recent years sold on a number of military Gazelles which were surplus to requirements. Some of these are now operated by private owners under a Permit to Fly…they cannot get a Certificate of Airworthiness, for reasons far too complicated to go into here. But Gazelles were not to be found around every corner and on every airfield, and for a long time I simply couldn’t find anyone prepared to let me fly one.

    My chance finally came after contacting MW Helicopters, who are based at Stapleford Aerodrome in Essex. Founded in 1995, this company specialises in Gazelles, providing sales, maintenance, training, and self-fly hire. It was set up by Martin Wood, a long-time Gazelle enthusiast. Martin acquired his first Gazelle in the early 1990s, and fell in love with the type almost instantly. However, he became increasingly frustrated by the difficulties involved in obtaining spares, plus the lack of any reliable support structure for the aircraft. He therefore resolved the problem by setting up his own company, specialising initially in Gazelle maintenance. In 1997 he moved the fledgling organisation to Stapleford, and contacted Hossein Seylani, a helicopter engineer who had worked on the Gazelle since the 1980s, asking him to join the operation. Gradually things developed, until MW Helicopters became the UK’s main specialist organisation for anything to do with Gazelles. It was Hossein who had invited me over to see their operation and fly one of their Gazelles, so I drove over there with photographer Neil Harrison on a sunny day in April this year.

    What do you call a large group of Gazelle helicopters? A flock, a herd, a gaggle? Before arriving at MW Helicopters, I had never seen so many Gazelles in one place before. According to Hossein, the company maintains around 35 of these machines, mainly civilian ones, but a few ex-MOD examples too, and half a dozen or more were sitting in front of MW’s hangar. As Hossein pointed out to me, they all had slightly different features, and this is hardly surprising, since a large number of variants of the Gazelle were produced over the long years it was in use. There were a couple of ex-mil ones, still looking almost ready for battle, since they retained features such as an army radio or a partly military paint scheme. Apparently, a number of owners like to keep their Gazelles’ history alive in this way. There was an American variant with full IFR instrumentation, since in the USA, unlike over here, single-engined IFR helicopters are permitted. A couple of the Gazelles were ‘stretched’ versions; again in America, a version had been produced which was 20 cms longer, and though that doesn’t sound like much, it gave passengers much more legroom. And there were other differences too; for instance, some Gazelles had a cover on the tail rotor shaft although the original Aerospatiale design did not include this, and others had a cover over the tail rotor gearbox, which again was a more recent modification.

    G-WCRD, our steed for the day, was one of the Gazelles originally produced for civilian use, the SA-341G. It was a ‘stretched Gazelle’, with the roomier cockpit, and had a covered tail rotor driveshaft plus fairings on the skids to give extra speed. But apart from these details it was of a standard civil Gazelle design.

    Looking at the aircraft closely, my first impression was of just how attractive this machine was. ‘Beautiful’ seems the wrong term for a dedicated fighting machine such as the Gazelle was originally designed to be, but it really is an exceptionally good-looking helicopter. The long cockpit – particularly apparent in the stretched version – tapers gently towards the tail in graceful flowing lines. The shape is quite distinctive, and you really couldn’t mistake a Gazelle for any other type of helicopter.

    Climbing aboard the Gazelle is easy since the skids are very low; even female passengers in skirts would be unlikely to have trouble getting into one. Other vertically challenged pilots would undoubtedly be as delighted as I was to find that both the pedals and the pilot’s seat can be moved forward and aft. Quite often the pedals of a helicopter move, but I then find that I cannot easily reach the instrument panel. Similarly, if only the seat moves, you can find yourself almost sitting on the cyclic. In the Gazelle, I adjusted both until the seating position was ideal; in fact, it was perhaps the most comfortable seat I’ve ever had in a helicopter. I’m sure that extra-tall pilots have similar problems, and probably they would find the Gazelle very comfortable too…plus everyone of any size in between of course.

    Neil the photographer climbed into the roomy back seat, where he had a huge amount of space for both himself and all his gear. Michael Jupp, MW chief pilot and instructor, took the left hand seat; like most helicopters, the Gazelle is generally flown from the right. After fastening the standard four-point harness, I began to acquaint myself with the instrument panel. It was relatively small and in the middle of the cockpit, meaning that visibility from the front was almost completely unobstructed. Most of the instrumentation was standard and quite basic, though our helicopter had a GPS and a radalt in addition to the usual dials.

    For pilots unfamiliar with the Gazelle and its Astazou engine, the start-up is a little different from what they are probably used to, but certainly not more difficult. For a start, there are some useful innovations to prevent you making mistakes, which I had never before seen on any other helicopter. Michael pointed out to me the dial on the torque gauge, which enables you to set the outside air temperature and density altitude, and then tells you instantly how much power you can pull. Similarly, you set the outside temperature on the collective, which again does not allow you to use more power than you should. Finally, the Gazelle has an early version of FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control), which automatically shuts down the whole system if there is a major problem. As Michael put it when showing me all this, “It’s designed so that you can’t make mistakes. It’s much more advanced than the JetRanger. The start means you don’t have that heart-stopping moment when you open the throttle and hope you don’t ‘over-temp’ it.” As someone who, in common with many pilots, always worries about hot starts when it comes to getting turbine engines going, this sounded wonderful, and it is particularly surprising in a helicopter designed so many years ago.

    After this reassurance the start was almost simplicity itself. You turn on the battery, then the generator, then the fuel pump for 20 seconds. The start switch is moved to ‘run’ to get the engine turning over. Next the switch is moved to ‘ignition’, which gets everything turning and burning. Once the temperature rises, the FADEC system takes care of everything for you. Then, with the engine stabilised, the rotor brake – a huge red handle on the overhead panel – is released, and the throttle, which is also in the overhead panel, is slowly opened. I found the throttle position a little odd, but it does mean you are highly unlikely to close it by mistake during flight. However, as Michael pointed out, it is awkward during practice auto-rotations, since you cannot easily handle all the controls and move the throttle at the same time. Interestingly, the rotors can be disengaged and stopped while the engine is running. I could see this being extremely useful for military operations, but it was not something I had encountered before with civilian helicopters.

    Lifting into the hover in the Gazelle would be no problem at all if it were not for the fact that the rotors turn the ‘wrong’ way, ie in common with most French and Russian helicopters, but unlike American and British ones, they turn clockwise. This means that the ‘power’ pedal is the right one, and most helicopter pilots in this country are not used to putting in bootfuls of right pedal when you lift off. A number of people have told me that they find no difficulty in this pedal reversal in French helicopters, and indeed, when it comes to simply flying in balance or correcting yaw in flight, I too find this to be the case. But in situations in which a great deal of pedal use is required, such as taking off or transitioning from forward flight to the hover, things are very different, and it is easy to forget about the amount of right pedal required.

    Once in the hover and away from the ‘flock’ of Gazelles, I began by practising hovering and doing a couple of spot turns. No problem at all; it was a piece of cake. There was little wind, which of course made things easy, but I found little evidence of any lack of tail rotor responsiveness. As with any new helicopter, it took me a few minutes to become accustomed to it, but that is to be expected in any new type. Unlike in fixed-wing flying, things can go wrong very fast in an unfamiliar helicopter, so I was grateful to have Michael, who has many hours on the Gazelle, sitting next to me.

    Transitioning into forward flight, I was too busy to notice our rate of climb, but in what seemed like no time at all we were well up over the Essex countryside. I levelled off at a sensible height, and found that ‘RD’ settled comfortably into a straight and level cruise at…120 kts. Yikes! This may not seem that quick to fixed-wing pilots, but it is faster than most helicopters, certainly than the JetRanger and R44, both of which cruise at around 90-100 kts. However, the ride was so smooth and comfortable that I was actually very surprised to find that we were going so fast. Perhaps the extra speed of the Gazelle had caught other pilots unawares too, I began to think. More about this aspect of things later…

    Despite the fact that the fenestron is supposed to reduce noise, the Gazelle was definitely not a quiet machine. Perhaps it was the type of headsets we were using, but the external noise seemed louder than in many helicopters with tail rotors. I don’t know why this should be the case, and neither did Michael. Certainly the more modern Eurocopter range of helicopters are very quiet, so possibly fenestrons became more sophisticated in the years after the Gazelles were produced. This is perhaps my only criticism of a helicopter I was already beginning to like very much indeed. For the noise really did nothing to spoil my enjoyment of flying this aircraft. Like may pilots before me, I quickly found that I loved the Gazelle. It was as responsive and manoeuvrable as an R22, but far faster and more powerful…a true pilot’s machine. Want to climb quickly? We got almost 2,000 ft/minute in ours, and I gather some can do even better than that. The cruise speed is reputed to be up to 140 kts, although we couldn’t actually manage more than 125; we must have had a rather slow Gazelle, relatively speaking! Steep turns, up to 60 degrees, were straightforward. Indeed, with its rigid rotor head, the Gazelle can turn up to 90 degrees and do wingovers and barrel rolls with ease, but neither Michael nor I are the sort of pilots who like being turned upside down, so I didn’t test this. Instead, we flew low over the Blackwater Estuary, seal spotting and testing the ability of the Gazelle to turn on a sixpence…and it could. Quickstops were also simple, although you do have to be careful not to flare too aggressively and hit that long tail on the ground.

    Next, we climbed higher and tried an auto-rotation. Michael had told me that ‘autos’ in the Gazelle felt more like those in the R22 than the JetRanger, due to the low inertia composite rotor head, despite its size. Certainly, I found that you would need to be quick in lowering the collective if your rotor RPM was not to drop. But, as in the R22, you can get the rotor RPM back easily by flaring if necessary. In any event, the helicopter settled easily into a 65 kt glide, and although we had to recover at 500 ft to stay legal, I gather that autos to the ground are not that difficult.

    “What else do you want to do,” asked Michael, and I suggested landing in a confined area. He pointed to a tiny clearing in the middle of a wood, and I flew in that direction, trying hard to descend. This was when I started to find out that the Gazelle can bite! It takes a long time to slow down from 120 kts in such a large machine; I soon found that we were climbing again, and it became apparent I wasn’t going to make the clearing. “Right,” I thought, “Go around again”…but at this point we noticed a farmer in his Landrover close by. So we had to abandon our attempt, but for the first time during that flight I began to realise that maybe the Gazelle wasn’t the pussycat it had appeared to be.

    When we returned to Stapleford I found out that this was indeed the case. Forewarned, I allowed what I thought was plenty of time, and began to slow down well in advance of our arrival at the airfield. Nevertheless, I still found it difficult to stop ‘RD’ from climbing, and when I aggressively lowered the collective, of course I found that I needed the unfamiliar left pedal. Then there were aircraft in the circuit to avoid…and suddenly I found myself flying a fast, slippery helicopter with a mind of its own, which was rapidly getting ahead of me. And finally, to add to the overload, there was that bootful of unaccustomed right pedal required when coming to the hover…I managed the transition and landing, but I have to confess it wasn’t as pretty as I would have liked.

    However, I had learned something important. I now thought that there was a possible reason for the recent spate of Gazelle accidents involving low hours pilots. The Gazelle is such fun to fly that it would be very easy for a recently converted pilot to become over-confident, and to forget that he or she was dealing with a very quick, extremely responsive machine, which was undoubtedly quite different from anything he had flown before. Everything might seem fine during normal manoeuvres when there was plenty of thinking time, but as soon as the workload was increased for any reason, he might have problems. So if encountering bad weather and trying to scud run, it would be hard to slow down quickly without climbing into cloud. Wanting to land as soon as possible, he could find himself with far too much to do, and forget that the pedals worked the ‘wrong’ way round. Lack of practice and mental overload possibly caused the majority of those accidents, in my opinion, not loss of tail rotor effectiveness, of which there seemed to be no evidence whatsoever when we were flying. Indeed, Michael, who had converted many pilots on to the Gazelle, definitely agreed with me. “People don’t train enough in them,” he said. “They come from an R22 or R44, but this is heavier and faster and the aircraft gets ahead of people’s brains. The helicopter is fine, but converting to one of these without enough training is like passing your driving test and then getting into a Ferrari.”

    However, this is not in any way a criticism of the Gazelle. I can truly say that it is one of the nicest helicopters I have ever flown, despite being noisy and a bit of a challenge. I absolutely loved it! And relatively speaking, it’s not even that expensive. A Gazelle will cost you about the same price as a JetRanger to buy, and although parts are more expensive and it burns a little more fuel, it also goes faster and is much more fun to fly. Indeed, with a VNE of 168 kts, it is still the fastest single engine helicopter around. I can now definitely see why Martin Wood and other private owners like them so much. If I could afford it, I’d buy one tomorrow.

    HISTORY

    The Aerospatiale Gazelle was originally produced as a lightweight utility helicopter for the French army. The design quickly attracted British interest, leading to a joint venture between Aerospatiale and British company Westland Helicopters. A deal was signed in February 1967, allowing the production in Britain of 292 Gazelles and 48 Aerospatiale Pumas wanted by the British armed forces.

    The new helicopter looked somewhat like the well-known Alouette, and it initially used the same engine. However, unlike the Alouette, the Gazelle featured a fully enclosed fuselage structure and had provision for two pilots with side-by-side seating. It was also the first helicopter to have a fenestron instead of a tail rotor, which was designed for noise reduction and safely. In addition it had rotor blades made of composite materials, now widely used, but very new at that time.

    Westland performed the final assembly of the first military British version in 1970, now designated the SA-341, and in that year the Gazelle established three world helicopter speed records. A number of variants were introduced over the next few years, when the helicopter was extensively used by all branches of the armed forces. The helicopter saw action in every country in which the military served, from the Falkland Islands to the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq to the Kosovo campaign. All versions used the Astazou III engine.

    In 1972 a civilian version of the Gazelle – the SA-341G – was produced, and officially certificated for passenger use on June 7. In America, the design was modified to make it more comfortable for passengers, resulting in the so-called ‘Stretched Gazelle’, which was 20 cms longer and had a modified lateral fin.

    The upgraded SA-342 first flew in 1976. Again, several variants were made, including the civilian version, the SA-342J. These versions had more powerful Astazou engines, and the military versions were especially adapted for use in ‘hot and high’ conditions.

    The Gazelle proved popular with overseas customers, being used primarily by the military, but also in training and other civilian roles, and was built under licence in Egypt and Yugoslavia.

    The helicopter is now gradually being replaced in frontline duties by more modern aircraft, but it is still in military use for light transport and liaison roles. The civil versions continue to be popular, with an estimated 35-40 in use in the UK. These include a number of ex-MOD Gazelles, which were sold on a few years ago, and are now operated by private owners under a Permit to Fly.