I don't think I ever saw one of these, Woody. Were they any good?

Sam they were used for fire suppression with a strapped on big container of retardant ..Mainly crash response in case of inbound emergencies such as hung ordinance,gear malfunction,engine fires etc..Yes they were good always glad to see them in standby mode just in case.

You could get a little epilepsy from watching thing warm up.

Remember them quite well. Dad was in the Air Force, they followed us everywhere, and even followed me to Nam. They illustrate quite well what happens when the engineers get drunk. 😁

LOL

It's bigger brother, the K-Max, can lift almost twice it's weight.

Pretty cool.

Single seater though.....they would strap a lawn chair to the outside for the instructor to sit in.


Seems kinda drunk-ish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_HH-43_Huskie

24 hours of maintanance for every 1 hour of flight time.

I think the Russkies have something that looks like that but is bigger with contra-rotating rotors…. K-27?

Yup. They had them at Laredo AFB in 1970 when I was in flight training. They had crews on alert whenever any flight activity was going on, as part of the Fire Dept Crash unit. If anybody declared any kind of emergency, they'd fire up and hoist the fire bottle (a red sphere about a yard in diameter) and fly near the runway, just in case. I always pitied the poor firefighter in back who had to don his full silver fire suit every time - even when it was 110 degrees on the ramp.

Rotor blades were made of laminated wood. Interesting design.

WTF the instant I saw it.
"How does that work?" Figured they were timed, never considered timed and
counter rotating.

Is all of that complexity an advantage over a 4 bladed rotor?

Guessing not, since it's not commonly used. Even by the military.

The last time I saw a Kaman in the air it was being used as a cropduster. Many years ago.

I thought you meant these type of Zoomies !

The two counter rotating blades cancel out each other's torque, eliminating the need for a tail rotor. Whether that's two steps forward and one step back or two forward and three back is apparently open for debate.

A transmission problem is never good,
bet it's really bad on one of those.

Spark plugs optional.

There is a Kaman working the Tunnel 5 fire today, but it identifies as an airliner.



Bruce

Like this ?

^^^^Yes^^^

Bruce

They remind me of the Soviet Hormone

I grew up on or near AFBs also Dan.

If you were anywhere, you certainly saw those little Huskies on the flight line. I bet I built a couple dozen of the old Monogram model of them, quarter inch scale ( or 1/48th for you guys not in the know. ). I know I did one that was on a display at the Smithsonian, when I volunteered there when I was in high school.

That SOB is a couple tons over weight just in ugly alone! I wouldn't have believed it could get off the ground carrying that much ugly.

If I remember right they were called Pedro . They showed up when there was a possible crash landing incoming! I think I have pictures of one responding to fire call on the flightline This was taken at Naha AB Okinawa

We had these at Phan Rang AB Viet Nam. I think about late '68-early'69 one was lifting off at night with it's fire bottle underneath and fell right back down. I believe it killed all on board. I happened to be up on a hill overlooking the flight line, didn't see the crash but saw the fire.