Loewy-Sikorsky helicopter for Greyhound Bus Lines !

[hesham]

Hi,

in 1943 the Sikorsky designed a new 14-passenger helicopter,I can't
recognize it.
http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1943/1943%20-%202926.html?search=landgraf%20aircraft

 

[Jos Heyman]

Re: Sikorsky unknown helicopter

This design has some similarities to the S-51 (see the landing gear). That should indicate an 'S number' after or around S-51. I have no unknowns in my S listing after S-51 that would fit the bill. But, I have no details for the S-50 so may be (but a very very strong 'may be') we are looking at S-50.
On the other hand, my more realistic guess is that this is a design that never got to the drawing board and was, instead, restricted to an idea.

 

[Stargazer]

Amazing as it seems, this 14-passenger project found in the June 1944 edition of Popular Science not only used famed designer Raymond Loewy for its design, it was also found of interest by Greyhound Bus Lines, who are said to have "applied for permission to operate such craft on 49,130 miles of routes"!

 

[hesham]

My dear Stargazer,

please see;

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3242.0/highlight,sikorsky.html

 

[Stargazer]

Oops. Guess there is a merging of topics on the way...

Topics merged

 

[hesham]

Hi,


here is Raymond Loewy helicopter with Sikorsky for Greyhound Bus
Lines and one design for him too,page 18;


http://books.google.ca/books?id=PN8...AQ#v=onepage&q=popular mechanics 1944&f=false

 

[athpilot]

Great find!!

 

[hesham]

Great find!!

Thanks.

 

[Winston]

Better quality from a press copy. The reverse side reads:

Greyhound "Air Bus",
Greyhound has made an application to the Civil Aeronautics Board for operation of helicopter service to supplement its nationwide bus system.

Oct. 4 1945​

eBay auction ID: 292297252181

 

[hesham]

Wow,nice find Winston.

 

[hesham]

From Ailes 12/1944.

 

[hesham]

From this book.

 

[riggerrob]

Amazing as it seems, this 14-passenger project found in the June 1944 edition of Popular Science not only used famed designer Raymond Loewy for its design, it was also found of interest by Greyhound Bus Lines, who are said to have "applied for permission to operate such craft on 49,130 miles of routes"!

My guess is that those would have been high-density, short routes that were cluttered by mountains. rivers, tunnels, bridges, ferry boats, etc.

Another guess is that the circular protrusions - on the sides of the fuselage - would provide cooling air to a pair of radial engines mounted low near the center-of-gravity.

 

[fortrena]

In June or July of 1943, Greyhound Corporation, a major intercity bus firm, filed an application with the Civil Aeronautics Board, the ancestor of today’s Federal Aviation Administration, to operate a vast transport network along the routes its buses were traveling. That service was to be performed through a subsidiary created for that very purpose, Greyhound Skyways. Greyhound hoped to conduct trials before too long, well before the end of the war, if the necessary permits and the sizeable helicopters it seemed interested in could be secured. As was mentioned above, the scale model of the fourteen-passenger transport helicopter in question, mentioned and shown by Greyhound, was crafted by famous French American industrial designer Raymond Loewy, founder of New York City-based Raymond Loewy and Associates, in collaboration with Igor Sikorsky.

Greyhound was by no means the only American firm paying attention to helicopters in 1943. More than thirty other trucking, transit and air transport firms, including, for example, Marion Trucking of Marion, Indiana, Capital Transit of Washington, DC, and Pioneer Airline of Cambridge, Massachusetts, had filed applications of their own by early October 1943. Many others were planning to follow suit.

All in all, many people had come to think that the helicopter would be a useful element in the post Second World War air transport system of the United States – and far beyond its shores