Rotary Wing Aircraft

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Great promotion for new Dodge SRT Demo. They flew one in to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in front of thousands of fans. The helicopter is a Kaman K-MAX. It has twin intermeshing rotors so it does not require a tail rotor. This frees up 30% of engine power for lifting. ..according to Charlie Kaman.


 
Predecessor to the KMax above... H-43 Huskie "Pedro"* - flown by the USAF 1958-mid-70s and the USN/USMC 1951-65. Like several helicopters of the era it was produced in both piston and turbine engined variants (the piston engine occupied the rear of the fuselage, the turbine engine was located above the rear fuselage, allowing access to the cabin via rear clamshell doors). Used for local airfield rescue & transport, combat rescue, and combat observation.

* The H-43 performed more rescue missions in Vietnam than any other aircraft type - between 1966 and 1970, the type performed a total of 888 combat rescues, comprising 343 aircrew rescues and 545 non-aircrew rescues.

Cam Ranh Bay Air Base 1-1-68:




DET5 Udorn RTAFB Feb 68:




Operation Abilene (Battle of Xa Cam My April 11–12, 1966) HH-43B:




US Air Force HH-43B Huskie practices hoist rescue operations at an air base in South Vietman 1966:




USMC OH-43D Flying Leatherneck Museum (rotor blades were wood, not many left):

 
Kaman's intermeshing rotor helicopters were engineered in great part by a new immigrant: Anton Flettner (he was hired by Kaman as a designer).

Here is his previous design - the Fl-282, which was flown in 1941 and produced in small numbers.
A single-seat version entered service in 1942 - here doing trials from the light cruiser Köln:




A 3-seat version for the Army was produced from 1944:




Examples were also flown with a nosecone, a partial plexiglass enclosure, and a fully enclosed cockpit:







 
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Here it Flettner's earlier (1939 flight) pioneering intermeshing rotor aircraft (note that there is only a cooling fan for the engine, not a propeller).
It was also the first rotorcraft to go from powered flight to autorotation and then back to powered flight without loss of control.

6 Fl-265s were built before work shifted to the Fl-282:

 
I worked for Kaman Aerospace back in the '90s and had a chance to talk to Charlie Kaman- interesting character. He almost joined the Dorsey band as a guitar player instead of going to college. In conversation here in Tucson he credited Flettner with the intermeshing rotor technology.
 
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