H-43 Huskie Questions and What-if Ideas

[PR19_Kit]

The point is there's MORE risk approaching a Huskie, or indeed any Kaman (OK, apart from a Seasprite...) from the sides because the tilted rotor axes mean the tips are a lot closer to the ground at the sides.

Piccie of that sign I mentioned below, it's on the rotor pylon itself.

[Jschmus]

The Marine Huskies were piston-engined HOKs, observation helicopters.  They didn't have quite the range or payload of the turbine-engined Air Force variants.  I did wonder why the Marines never bought the upgraded machines or upgraded the ones they had.

[dy031101]

The Marine Huskies were piston-engined HOKs, observation helicopters.  They didn't have quite the range or payload of the turbine-engined Air Force variants.  I did wonder why the Marines never bought the upgraded machines or upgraded the ones they had.

So did I......

Had there been any thought of arming the observation type (beyond cabin-mounted machineguns, if it has already been attempted)?

[Jschmus]

I remembered this development while looking up the Sikorsky S-61D over in the other thread.  Kaman worked on a civil derivative of the HH-43, then tried to interest the Air Force.  There were no takers.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/kaman_1125.php

I didn't realize they'd actually built and evaluated a prototype.