Lockheed xh-51

It was a rigid rotor in the early 60s (before the Cheyenne).  If that wasn’t enough they added a turbojet pusher engine and stub wings and exceeded 260kts in the early 60s.  The rigid rotor allowed extreme CG ranges and there are numerous pictures online showing people hanging off air data booms, etc.  including this one of what looks like an exciting ride:  



While 200lb of person and the boom doesn’t sound like much, the helicopter was only around 4000lbs max gross weight, so 200lbs at the edge of the rotor disc is a massive CG range.  

Here is what it looked like with the pusher engine:



There’s tons of YouTube videos available, this one shows some loops/rolls, speed runs, and my favorite ATM task: under obstacle flight.  



Here is the pusher engine aircraft today looking quite sad:

For some reason the makes me think of the work that was done on an intrinsically stable rotor head control system, but my Google-fu escapes me on this one.

The helicopter we should have had...

Politics is a bitch!

I happened to be at Rucker last week and stopped at the museum to see the construction.  The xh51 and a number of other experimental and unfielded aircraft are in the museum now as it appears the addition required the removal of one of the storage buildings.  All the aircraft moved into the museum have been restored - the xh51 has fresh paint and windshields!

WTH?! No pics?

That's almost as egregious as talking about a hot woman you saw/know and not posting pics.