Aérospatiale SA360 Dauphin
The Aérospatiale SA360 Dauphin was a single-engine French utility helicopter developed as a replacement for Aérospatiale's Alouette III in the early 1970s and to fill a gap in the company's product line in the six to ten-seat helicopter category. However, as the new helicopter offered little advantage over its predecessor and thus limited market appeal, production of the SA360 Dauphin was abandoned after only a few dozen of them had been built.
Aérospatiale had also developed a twin-engine derivative, the Dauphin II, which proved to be quite successful and has been in production for nearly 40 years. After the merger of Aérospatiale's helicopter division into Eurocopter in 1992, the Dauphin II designation was dropped, and Eurocopter-built Dauphin IIs are simply referred to as "Dauphin". The retronym "Dauphin I" is sometimes applied to the original Dauphin.
Variants[edit | edit source]
- SA360: First two prototypes.
- SA360C: Standard production version, 34 aircraft built.
- SA360A: Navalized version for Aeronavale, 1 converted from SA 360C.
- SA361H: "Hot and high" version with more powerful (969 kW (1,300 shp)) Astazou XX engine, glassfibre rotor blades and new rotor hub. Three converted from SA360 and SA360C.
- SA361HCL: Militarized version, 1 converted from SA361H.
- SA365C2: Twin engined version with more powerful 2 × Turbomeca Arriel 1A2 turboshaft engines, 500 kW (670 hp) each.
