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This was Piasecki,s first production helicopter. Twenty of these were built to be used by the Navy, Marine Corp. and the Coast Guard. They were tandem rotor, fabric covered, welded chrome-moly steel tube fuselages. Power was supplied by a 600 HP Pratt & Whitney engine. Rotor blades were wood covered. Design gross weight was 6900 pounds or 2 pilots and 8 passengers.
The shape of the fuselage was designed to provide clearance for the rotors. It was commonly called the Banana. Following an auto-rotation into a farm field in New Jersey, a farmer commented, “Well, you bent her in the middle but you got her down all right”.
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Since this aircraft, also the later H-21, were single engine, we had a few occasions of engine failure and a need to get the aircraft home. The nearby Commodore Barry bridge was not built, so the only reasonable way across the river was the Chester Ferry.
Problem: Either aircraft was to high to pass thru the ferry boat. Solution: Rent the entire ferry, put the aircraft on the stern, turn the boat around in mid stream, pull it back off on the other side. Cost $90; it worked just fine, but there were some angry truckers who had to wait for the boat to come back.
Charles Kessler is a retired flight test engineer for
Boeing’s Vertol helicopter division (formerly Piasecki Helicopter Co.). He
joined Piesecki in 1947, in the company’s fourth year, and retired from Boeing
in 1983. During his 37-year career he took part in the testing of prototypes
and alterations of such models as the CH-47 Chinook and Sea Knight, the H-16,
HRP-2, and the V-107. He taught the stability augmentation system to the German
Luftwaffe. He has written about his experience in a blog called “Early
Helicopter Years,” which can be found at http://helicopterstory.blogspot.com/.
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