Omega Helicopters and Projects

hesham

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From Aviation magazine 1965,

a clearer view to BS-17.
 

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The Omega BS12 was initially test flown in New Bedford MA in the late 1950’s. The test pilot, Dave Froley was my first flight instructor. My Father was the insurance broker that placed the insurance for the helicopter. Where I was 15 I was invited to sit in the helicopter.
This was the first multi engine helicopter certified by the FAA. It was also the first helicopter used for medevac at the Ind 500.
Sitting in this helicopter started my love of flying. I now have 14,000 plus hours of which is 3500 hours in CH47A, B, C, and D.
 
View attachment 688410

View attachment 688411

View attachment 688412

View attachment 688413View attachment 688414

Looking at the position of the horizontal surface on the tail, I think it might be slightly out of alignment and perhaps has come loose on the model.

I hope these photos are of interest.

500 Fan.
500 Fan, Thanks so much for the model pictures. Around 1992 I started a search all over the US for what was reported as the last 2 BS-12 helicopters. My goal was to find one and take it back to flyable condition. Unfortunately I failed to find one. If anyone know where one might be located please let me know.
Thanks,
Ric Wilken (628113891267 WA)
 
View attachment 688410

View attachment 688411

View attachment 688412

View attachment 688413View attachment 688414

Looking at the position of the horizontal surface on the tail, I think it might be slightly out of alignment and perhaps has come loose on the model.

I hope these photos are of interest.

500 Fan.
500 Fan, Thanks so much for the model pictures. Around 1992 I started a search all over the US for what was reported as the last 2 BS-12 helicopters. My goal was to find one and take it back to flyable condition. Unfortunately I failed to find one. If anyone know where one might be located please let me know.
Thanks,
Ric Wilken (628113891267 WA)
Hi Ric. It's a pity you were not able to track a BS-12 down. It would be great to see one back in airworthy condition. Do you believe that the two airframes still exist, somewhere in the USA?

500 Fan.
 
Since I retired and moved to Bali, Indonesia I have not spent any time trying to track them down. I will try to pick up my search. I’ll contact my friends that own aircraft salvage companies around the US.
 
The following may be of interest.

Launched by a short-lived company, Intercity Airlines, the SG Mark VI was designed by a unique team, Polish engineer Bernard W. Sznycer and female American engineer Selma G. Gottlieb, which was based for a time in Montreal, Quebec. It was arguably one of the most advanced and innovative helicopter of its day. Designed to minimize vibrations and facilitate production, the SG Mark VI first flew in July 1947. Canada’s Department of Transport awarded a Certificate of Airworthiness to a second prototype, in April 1951. The SG Mark VI was the first helicopter designed within the British Commonwealth to be so honored. Sadly, by then, American helicopters all but dominated the civilian and military markets. The SG Mark VI was abandoned during the winter of 1953-54 and both Sznycer and Gottlieb returned to the United States.

Although severely affected by the abandonment of the Grey Gull, Sznycer founded Omega Aircraft in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in December 1953, and developed a new helicopter, the SB-12 / BS-12. A prototype of this robust, easy-to-maintain and quasi-revolutionary twin-engine helicopter, the first flying crane in history in fact, flew in October 1956. A famous helicopter test pilot and friend of Sznycer, Fred W. “Slim” Soule, was at the controls.

Several innovative elements of the BS-12 originated from discussions with leaders of what was then one of the largest, if not the largest civilian helicopter operator in the world, Canada’s Okanagan Helicopters of Vancouver, British Columbia. These individuals included Carlyle Clare “Carl” Agar, the firm’s Vice-President of Research and a well-known pioneer in the use of the helicopter for civilian purposes in Canada sometimes known as Mr. Helicopter.

Mind you, Sznycer was also working on the plans of a smaller helicopter in the spring of 1958.

As of 1960, eight BS-12s were on order. The first delivery, to Aero-Boeing of Seattle, a firm owned by the son of the founder of Boeing Airplane, William Edward Boeing, Junior, took place in August 1959. Okanagan Helicopters was planning to take on three BS-12s for its newly founded Copter Cabs subsidiary. The latter was an executive transport service scheduled to operate in the Vancouver / Victoria area of British Columbia. For some reason or other, the firm’s management decided to drop its order. The Department of Public Works of Massachusetts seemingly dropped its order for one machine around the same time.

Indeed, despite constant efforts on the part of Omega Aircraft’s management, most potential customers shunned the BS-12. Efforts made by some investors to impose themselves around 1959-60, to the chagrin of others who gradually withdrew their support, probably did not help.

By 1961, if not 1959, Sznycer was working on an improved BS-12 and on a three-engine turboshaft-powered transport version of this helicopter. These projects went nowhere. Even so, the BS-12 received its American Type Certificate in April 1961.

By then, the much bigger and more powerful S-60 flying crane / proof of concept prototype developed by the Sikorsky Aircraft Division of United Aircraft had been flying for slightly more than two years. The production version of Sikorsky Aircraft’s helicopter, the far more powerful S-64 Skycrane, flew for the first time in May 1962. The United States Army bought its first CH-54 Tarhe in June 1963. The new machine proved extremely successful. While most of the Skycranes produced by the firm carried military colors, a few went to commercial operators from 1968 onward.

Back in 1963-64, Omega Aircraft became the subsidiary of Allied Aero Industries of Syracuse, New York. This reorganization was unsuccessful, however. Marketing of the BS-12 was suspended around 1965. A final derivative of the helicopter, the seven-seat BS-15, did not go beyond the scale model stage. Omega Aircraft itself soon closed its doors, after having manufactured only three or four BS-12s. The firm manufactured no other helicopter.

Yet another firm, Aeronautical Research and Development of Boston, acquired the production rights of the BS-12 around 1967. No new example of the helicopter, now known as the RP-440, was produced. The same could be said of the TP-900 three-engine turboshaft-powered helicopter proposed around 1969-70 and designed for use with detachable pods / containers of various types.

Deeply affected by the commercial failure of the BS-12, Sznycer gradually abandoned aeronautical engineering to write, paint and sculpt. His Georgian / Russian American wife, the beautiful ex-actress, ballerina and teacher Katherine Sergava Sznycer, encouraged him in these activities. Indeed, this engineer translated The Gull / The Seagull, a famous play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. He even completed a theater play, No Man’s Land, in 1964. Bernard W. Sznycer died in New York City on 30 November 1970. He was only 66 years old
 
Yet another firm, Aeronautical Research and Development of Boston, acquired the production rights of the BS-12 around 1967. No new example of the helicopter, now known as the RP-440, was produced. The same could be said of the TP-900 three-engine turboshaft-powered helicopter proposed around 1969-70 and designed for use with detachable pods / containers of various types.

Thank you my dear Fortrena,

and for RP-440 and TP-900,please see;

 
I remember when I was around 9 or 10 going to the New Bedford airport with my father. It was either very late at night or early morning. One of the prototypes had crashed with Dave Froley at the controls. The helicopter had been tethered to the ground by cables allowing to only hover. There was a second pilot on board. I remember walking within 50 feet of the helicopter and seeing the broken landing gear. My father told me the cause of the accident was pilot error when left seat pilot thought right seat pilot had the controls and right seat thought thought the left seat had the controls.
As I read the posts I remember small details but it was a long long time ago. Now I feel that my exposure to this helicopter motivated me to Join the U.S. Army and sign up for helicopter flight school. I retired in 2001 after over 32 years in the Active, National Guard and Reserve. In 1970 while on my second tour in Vietnam I too crash a helicopter, but that’s another story.
1670636980269.jpeg
 
The following may be of interest.

Launched by a short-lived company, Intercity Airlines, the SG Mark VI was designed by a unique team, Polish engineer Bernard W. Sznycer and female American engineer Selma G. Gottlieb, which was based for a time in Montreal, Quebec.
It is worth to also mention that before Intercity Airlines, Mr Sznycer worked on Kaiser-Fleetwings XH-10 Twirleybird helicopter.
 
The following may again be of interest.

Starting in 1943, Sznycer worked on certain elements of an anti-submarine helicopter with a tail rotor which was to be produced in the shops of the Fleetwings Division of Kaiser Cargo of Bristol, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of Henry J. Kaiser Co., an owner of large shipyards controlled by Kaiser Shipbuilding. Indeed, the XH-10 Twirleybird was more or less designed to operate from a platform mounted on specially-equipped Liberty ships, a type of cargo vessel mass produced during the Second World War by, among other firms, Kaiser Shipbuilding. Although tested in 1944, the Twirleybird was not put in production.

Sznycer opened a design office with Gottlieb and Douglas Courtenay Watson, one of the world’s first Black aeronautical engineers, in early 1944. They examined the problems of helicopter vibration and control. The trio also worked on a liaison and observation helicopter for the U.S. Navy, the Bendix SWG-1, while under some sort of contract with, in all likelihood, a new, small and struggling helicopter manufacturing firm, Bendix Helicopter of Stratford, Connecticut. As it turned out, this design fell by the wayside before a prototype was even built.

The team having fractured, Sznycer and Gottlieb moved to New York City. They offered to design a helicopter for the Soviet government and talked to a group interested in producing helicopters in Mexico. The group in question may have been linked to Helicopteros de Mexico, an air service firm authorized in March 1944. Sadly, neither the Soviet nor the Mexican projects came to fruition. Indeed, it looks as if Helicopteros de Mexico did not conduct so much as one experimental flight before going out of business.
 
From Air Pictorial 1961.
 

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