Bell 47 and variants

[Stargazer]

It wasn't the prototype.  AIUI, it was a mockup and apparently an incomplete one at that.  I understand your ire but it was apparently in a very bad way and on the point of collapse because of years of outside display.

Really? Well... in that case I guess it wasn't SO bad. Thanks for the info!

[Jschmus]

There were a LOT of people PO'd over that disposal.  The board of the Carolinas Aviation Museum had been talking to someone at Fort Rucker about taking it on, and had rented a truck and very large trailer for the purposes of moving it up from Alabama.  They were about to hit the road when someone called and told them not to come.  Not long after, the Museum got its Medal of Honor CH-46, and the HLH was all but forgotten.  Wikipedia says that some of the mechanical bits of the XCH-62 are now at the Helicopter Museum in the UK.

[rickshaw]

I doubt they came from the HLH mockup.  AIUI, it had no mechanical bits in it and was purely a cosmetic mockup to show what it would look like and was only complete on one side.  It was primarily timber framed as well, which had decayed in the open air.  Your friends might well have found a collapsed mockup at the end of their journey.