And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thursday, June 16, 2022
The Bell HSL (Model 61) was an American 1950s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter built by Bell Helicopter company, the only tandem rotor type designed by Bell.
An interesting history, as 53 were built, 52 were flyable as one was a static model, 7 entered Navy service, 45 went into storage, and all were retired within 4 years of of the first one being put into service.
Thinking it was displaced by the contemporary Sikorsky HSS-1 Seabat (later H-34 "Choctaw" and inside Sikorsky called the S-58).
A factor might have been the, apparently, open windscreen around the gearcase in front of the pilots. That whole setup screams "prototype" to me. You would be surprised how often the proto design ends up as the early production design. One of the reasons I worked hard to make prototypes of any sort as close to what I would accept for production purposes as possible. Because I knew...
Hideously ugly contraption.
ReplyDeleteMany of the early Sikorskys were pretty ugly too.
DeleteAn interesting history, as 53 were built, 52 were flyable as one was a static model, 7 entered Navy service, 45 went into storage, and all were retired within 4 years of of the first one being put into service.
ReplyDeleteThinking it was displaced by the contemporary Sikorsky HSS-1 Seabat (later H-34 "Choctaw" and inside Sikorsky called the S-58).
A factor might have been the, apparently, open windscreen around the gearcase in front of the pilots. That whole setup screams "prototype" to me. You would be surprised how often the proto design ends up as the early production design. One of the reasons I worked hard to make prototypes of any sort as close to what I would accept for production purposes as possible. Because I knew...
DeleteLooks like the -22, minus a few parts.
ReplyDeleteinsect
ReplyDeleteInverse mullet - party in front, business in back.
ReplyDeleteThe Piasecki H-21 made more sense, aesthetically.
ReplyDelete