Best rotary wing aircraft of WWII

[Corsarius]

Hi Everyone,

An odd poll, but something a bit 'different'. What does everyone believe is the best/most useful/most successful/most potential rotary wing aircraft of WWII?

[simon]

Difficult, because there are so few to choose between and they were so primitive...

I'd say probably the most useful were the little ones they used mainly on USN Carriers for Air Sea Rescue. They probably saved quite a few lives of aircrews that ditched close to their carriers as they were a lot quicker than launching rescue boats. Can't remember their name or designation though, I think they may have been built by Bell.

[Ricky]

My favorite?
The little German one (name begins with a K...) that was mainly tube framing, and was designed to operate from U-boats (tethered), to give them a view 'over the horizon'

But I don't think I would have liked to fly them...
Especially as if the sub had to dive, the chopper was abandoned.
Nice idea, though.

[Corsarius]

Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 "Drache"

I like the big transport chopper, and if it were built in quantity, with military thinking to support it, it would have been far superior to those created by sikorski in the US. After all, with twin or contra-rotating rotors, the vehicle is inherintly more stable than with a tail prop.

Unfortunately, on either side military thinking did not really extend to the helicopter, armed or otherwise. You must have to think back to realise how alien the concept must have been at the time. Generals always plan to fight the LAST war.

[simon]

And hindsight is always 20:20. It's too easy to be critical of past Generals, and we, the amateur historians are usually the worst at declaring how we would have won a war or battle by investing in different technology or attacking a different position.

At the same time you have to remember how many other projects which may have been as promising in different ways as the helicopter never came to fruition, examples such as some of the odd looking flying saucer type designs of the US spring to mind.

To fully appreciate how unpromising the helicopter may have seemed, consider the following. Firstly when the helicopter was being developed for military purposes the progress of the air war showed that speed for combat aircraft was paramount, everything else was secondary. Helicopters by contrast were very slow, extremely fragile and could only carry a very small load, although they were agile.

The only real use for them appeared to be delivery or recovery of equipment or personel, which aeroplanes could carry in greater quantity, further and faster. For recovery, if you had at your disposal an aircraft like a Storch you could land and take off from a very short, very rough runway, over sea a floatplane or flying boat could recover pretty much anything they could see.

If you had in mind a one way trip, gliders, although vulnerable were a very economical method of getting troops and materials onto the ground.

With that in mind it is difficult to see how the development of the helicopter was justified at all, and were it not for the Korean War, and later the Air Cavalry in Vietnam it may well have faded into obscurity. As it was they definitely found and filled a unique niche.

[Corsarius]

I agree with you completey. We can often be critical of those who were there at the time. It's why I stated the alien-ness of the helicopter to established military thinking.

It would be as if an inventor suddenly turned up to the air force and offered plans for a plasma-powered UFO. They would take it, build it, and likely see there is absolutely no use for it. (and anyone about to mention the words 'Pine Gap', 'Area 51', or 'S-4' will be shot immediately).

The Germans, so far as I can see, and to a lessor extent the Japanese used a lot of different rotorcraft for a variety of uses. Only the Germans, I understand, used theirs equipped with rockets, smoke bombs and depth charges for anti-submarine warfare, and the Japanese used an autogyro equpped with (hugely primitive) MAD and depth charges for the same purpose. Even so, it was only a skeptical navy that ever took on what is one of the most versatile airborne machines for naval warfare.

I do not believe that rotorcraft had a lot of success, but I recently read a history of Transportstaffel 40, which was the world's first ever helicopter transport wing. They succeeded in everything that they did, and then some. From transport, to acting as a 'flying crane', to mountain rescue. Mussolini was originally supposed to be resuced using a Fa 223.

The helicopter had a rather unglamourous start, but it did nearly all the things that we now take it for granted, and did them well, even back in the '40s.

Thus the purpose of this poll, to have we, the amatuer historians, protect, understand, and preserve the knowledge that even the obscure is important.

After all, do we really want ANOTHER 'spitfire vs Bf-109' thread?

[Corsarius]

quote:Originally posted by simon

examples such as some of the odd looking flying saucer type designs of the US spring to mind.

I always thought that the Avro Avrocar looked kind-of funky, or do you mean during the war, the 'flying flapjack'? I really liked that thing, and the more-developed fighter prototype that never flew. It had massively high top speed, incredibly low landing speed, was stable and manoeverable throughout the flight envelope, and the rejected it because it was 'too advanced'! The Soviets did the same to the Sigma fighter (which was an essentially a flying wing, a bit like the northrop fighters of the same period)