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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stargazer2006" data-source="post: 68514" data-attributes="member: 3129">After investigating the matter for awhile, I have found means of identifying some of the many flying crane designs from Hiller:- The Model 1108 is a Hiller-Continental proposal that won an Army contract then was canceled.- The helicopter in Hesham's second post is NOT the Model 1108 but most probably the Class HC HEAVY LIFTER.- The Hiller/NASA crane that was supposed to carry the Saturn V boosters is NOT the Model 1045 (the type is already identified as a T-tail tilt-wing proposal and the date is much too late for that number).Here is a text found on the web (taken from J. P. Spencer's Whirlybirds: A History of the U.S. Helicopter Pioneers, 1998) and some new photos that shed some new light on the subject and recapitulate all the power-blade type flying crane projects that Hiller came up with:<blockquote>In 1949 the company built and tested the Hiller Powerblade, the world's first hot-cycle pressure-jet rotor. Hot exhaust gases ducted through various Powerblades produced greater efficiency, which was further boosted by the use of "tip burning", a term describing the combustion of fuel at the blade's exhaust nozzle. However, even this arrangement yielded substantially less propulsive efficiency than was obtainable by mounting jet engines right at the rotor blade tips. In 1950, therefore, Hiller abandoned the pressure-jet approach to tip propulsion and dedicated his company to experimentation with tip-mounted engines.Over the next fifteen years, Hiller actively pursued the construction of tip-powered flying cranes with a variety of jet engines at their blade tips. In 1951, the [Hiller] company offered the Army a midsize flying crane called the "Aerial Carryall" or "Flying Truck".</blockquote>This could be the quoted Model 1005 flying crane.<blockquote>It also responded to a Navy request for an aerial-resupply helicopter with the huge "Class HC Heavy Lifter", a collapsible flying crane of tubular construction. Neither of these efforts reached the prototype stage.</blockquote><img src="http://www.aviastar.org/foto/hiller_crane.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />This photo most certainly depicts the Class HC HEAVY LIFTER in mock-up form.<blockquote>The Army requested a design study for a flying crane with a 60m rotor in the mid-1950s. Hiller's response was BARC, an acronym for Besson's Aerial Railhead Crane. Named for Major General Frank S. Besson, chief of the Army Transportation Corps, this proposal similarly failed to find support. Neither did a series of parametric studies for a variety of tip-engined flying cranes that Hiller prepared in response to a 1955 military request.</blockquote>No pics of these projects so far... About the Model 1108, presented in the first post of this page, also known as the Hiller-Continental FLYING CRANE:<blockquote>By decade's end, it appeared that Hiller's continuing tip-propulsion efforts might at last pay off. Prompted by this promising body of exhaustive research, including thousands of hours of tip-powered rotor testing on Hiller whirlstands, the Army solicited industry bids for a tip-turbine-powered flying crane in the Hiller mold. Clearly favored to win a contract, Hiller teamed with Continental, manufacturer of the J69 turbojet engine. Although the Hiller-Continental team won the initial contract, funding for this Army program was cut in the early 1960s before a prototype was produced.</blockquote><img src="http://www.hillerchina.com.cn/uploads/090420/10_110027_1.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />This is the Hiller-Continental crane, also known as Model 1108.Finally, some light on the Hiller/NASA crane designed to recover Saturn V boosters (Model number unknown):<blockquote>Company hopes for giant tip-powered helicopters revived briefly in 1965 when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration considered sponsoring a Hiller flying crane to recover Saturn V moon booster first stages during Project Apollo. Aerial recovery of this spent first stage, which weighed up to 400 tons, dictated that the Hiller/NASA recovery vehicle be the largest aircraft of any kind yet proposed. The resulting design featured a gross weight of about a 450t and a rotor more than 100m in diameter. Powered by two or more jet engines per blade, this rotor would have turned at 60 rpm, presenting the illusion of slow motion to observers below.As laid out, the Hiller/NASA flying crane would loiter at 3000m some 750km downrange from Cape Kennedy. Sighting the moon booster descending by parachute, it would use special recovery gear to snag the spent rocket and winch it securely in. If the first pass was unsuccessful, sufficient time would remain for two more attempts before the booster was too near the ocean's surface for another try.Expensive as such a helicopter would have been, the huge aircraft would have paid for itself with the first several recoveries. But long-range planning for the nation's space program was beginning to favor the concept of a reusable space shuttle over single-use rockets, and this recovery helicopter was not funded.</blockquote><img src="http://www.hillerchina.com.cn/uploads/090417/10_162959_1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />An artist's view of the Hiller/NASA crane proposal.We should also add to all these helicopter-type projects a series of ducted fan/shrouded rotor flying crane proposals, all derived from research gained on the Model 1031/VZ-1 program, and as yet undesignated (see attached files).</blockquote>

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