![]() In front of each seat is a cyclic, which looks like the control stick in an airplane. You alter lift by changing the pitch of the blades while making sure they turn at a constant, safe speed. Note that on a helicopter, you do not alter lift by making the main rotor spin faster or slower. Increasing rotor pitch also increases drag, which must be compensated by increasing throttle to maintain a constant target rpm (the green area on the dual tachometer for engine and rotor revolutions, at the upper left). The collective also has a twist grip controlling the throttle. Raising it increases the pitch of all the main rotor blades the entire way around, increasing lift. It looks like the lift-handle parking brake in some cars. Unlike most later helicopters, the primary pilot of the Bell 47 sits on the left. To understand what both rotors do, I need to explain the controls in the cockpit. READ MORE: A Fanciful Flight in the ‘Spruce Goose’.The same engine drives both the main and tail rotor, via a cylinder-shaped transmission gearbox above the engine. Earlier Bell 47s used a less-powerful Franklin piston engine. This is a Bell 47G, so the engine is a single Lycoming 6-cylinder, air-cooled piston producing 280 hp that is also used in some versions of the Beechcraft V-Tail Bonanza. The Bell 47’s fuel tanks varied by model, but the two perched here each hold 30.5 gallons for a maximum range of 214 nm (246 sm or 396 kilometers). The Bell 47 has an empty weight of 1,893 pounds, about the same as a Volkswagen Beetle. The cockpit is made of sheet metal, with a plexiglass bubble windshield, and the tail is composed of exposed steel tubes. The construction is bare bones, nothing fancy. The helicopter’s height, to the top of its rotor mast, is 9 feet, 3 inches. The span of the main rotor is 37 feet, 2 inches. The fuselage of the Bell 47 is 31 feet, 7 inches from cockpit windshield to tail. First, let’s look at the tricky, bug-like aircraft that became their most recognizable symbol, the Bell 47. I’ll talk about MASH units, and the 8209th in particular, in a bit. The unit was equipped with Bell 47 (H-13) helicopters, which were famously featured in the opening credits of the long-running comedy-drama. As a result, it was home to the 8209th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), one of several units on which the fictional “4077th MASH” of TV fame was based. It was close to some of the toughest fighting late in the Korean War, including battles at Heartbreak Ridge and Bloody Ridge. It’s the winter of 1952, and this H-13 is parked in the Haean Basin, an oval-shaped valley just south of today’s DMZ between North and South Korea-dubbed the “Punchbowl” by American troops. Army, which designated it as the H-13 Sioux. However, improvements to Young’s Model 30 by late 1945 gave rise to the Model 47, a product Bell Aircraft viewed as marketable. ![]() Army, which saw limited search-and-rescue operations in the Burma Theater. In 1943 Igor Sikorsky sold the R-4 helicopter to the U.S. The Germans created a number of prototypes during the war. It was not the first helicopter to be developed. Over the next few years, the small engineering team led by Young developed a helicopter, the Model 30, capable of controlled flight. ![]() In 1941, he took his models to Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, New York, and the company agreed to work with him in developing full-size prototypes. READ MORE: Canada’s Rugged, All-Metal National AirplaneĪt his family’s farm outside of Philadelphia, Young spent 12 years conducting private experiments with model helicopters until he could reliably get them to fly.At that time, the development of helicopters was a field full of eccentrics, and Young fit the profile of the lone oddball genius. Drawn to philosophy, Young wanted to tie his more esoteric interests to the solution of elusive practical problems, and the one that intrigued him most was the helicopter. Bell was known for producing highly innovative if not necessarily successful airplanes during World War II, most notably the tricycle-gear P-39 Airacobra fighter.īut the story of the first Bell helicopter begins in 1927, when a man named Arthur Young graduated from Princeton University with a degree in mathematics. The Bell 47 was produced by Bell Aircraft, founded by Larry Bell in 1935. Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, I’m in Korea to fly the Bell 47, the iconic chopper from the TV show M*A*S*H and the first helicopter to be certified for civilian use. ![]()
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