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Posts: 150
Location: Minneapolis, MN | Just opened the December issue of National Geographic (Dec 2003) and was paging through the cover story about the future of flying....
There's a nice little blurb in the back about Charles Kaman's K-225 helicopter complete with a photo demonstrating his invention to D.C. politicians... It's in the 'flashback/album section'- check it out! :cool:
-Rich |
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Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Rich
I will surely check it out, that sort of thing interests me a lot. I was helicopter mech in the Army in the 50's.
Bailey |
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October 2003
Posts: 44
Location: Richland, Washington | There is chapter in the “History of Ovation Guitar” by Walter Carter on Charlie Kaman’s helicopters, including a very cool photo of Kaman dual rotor helicopter flying on the Washington D.C. mall with the Capitol building in the background. It’s critical history of how an engineer who understood vibration and how wood responds to different loads took this technology/knowledge and transferred it to make a better sounding guitar. Without the Charlie’s helicopter background the Ovation guitars we play today might never had gotten off the ground (no pun intended)! Craig |
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Posts: 171
Location: Indiana | Hey Bailey...
I was a huey crewchief in the early 80's in W. Germany. The whole aviation connection and where it led Charlie Kaman has always fascinated me too. I still turn wrenches but not on helicopters.
Mark |
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November 2002
Posts: 1196
Location: Lafayette, Louisiana | I too am a military aviation buff. I have always liked the Kaman HH-43 Huskie helicopter. It's tilted intermeshing rotors helped to make it very succesful in the fire surpression role. It served for many years. Another great Kaman design. |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | I saw the picture and it was a great piece of history, I still believe that we had some Kaman demonstrations at Ft. Eustis after we established it as an Army aviation center in the 1954-1955 years. The group I was atttached to set up the first major Army helicopter maintenance school at Ft. Eustis that covered every aircraft the Army had at the time, fixed and rotary wing. I recall personally fabricating rotor blade repair training aids for the wood and fiber blades on the Bell H-13 and many other aids, and we had at least one of every chopper the Army flew to use in training (we had maybe 50 H-13s, and some H-19s, H-25s, one H-21, one H-34 the only and first one received by the Army, a bunch of L-19s, an L-23 twin Beech, a DeHavilland Beaver, an F6F Navy fighter that had been a drone and we got it for the prop repair shop.)
We wrote the original lesson plans and class schedules after we were subjected to a completely humiliating course on training methods where we had to present a class and be critiqued on our preparation and presentation, not once but again and again until we got it right. I was 18 years old and sure I knew everything, but learned that it is best to know a lot more than the class if you are going to teach old timers a new field. I survived and even taught classes to ROTC summer campers, they asked the stupidest questions like "why should they know where the fuel tank switch is?" I use that as an example, because one like them forgot to switch tanks one day as we were flying over the 2 mile wide James River, thanks to the only good aircraft battery I'd seen, it restarted shortly before we would have had to use our ditching training that had failed many other deceased chopper passsengers.
Back to the subject, does cwk-2 or anybody know if Kaman was trying to sell helicopters to the Army in the mid 50's?
Bailey |
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September 2003
Posts: 782
Location: Waurika OK | Bailey,
Try kaman.com/index.php a company history. Actually I got there by searching kaman helicopters. They have a timeline you can search, 1945 - to present.
Might find something interesting there. Yes, the musical instrument story is part of this!
This is not a detailed history.
Noel |
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January 2002
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Bailey,
They were trying in the 60's and as I heard it, they had a deal just about done for a bunch (as in mega) and then Kennedy was killed and Johnson became president and the contract somehow wound up with that little company from Texas, Bell. Funny how shit like that happens. |
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Posts: 171
Location: Indiana | Bailey,
I think they started developing the Kaman SH-2 Seasprite around that time period but I think it was primarily used by the navy. It was before my day. btw...I went through Blackhawk school at Ft. Eustis.
cwk2...I hear you about LBJ. If I remember right, Ladybird had a lot of stock in Bell. I talked to a few pilots who served in Vietnam who were ticked when they started replacing the Hughes OH-6's with the Bell OH-58's...they were not nearly as crash-worthy. I don't know if it was true about the stock, but LBJ was very loyal to his business cronies...much like our current commander in thief.
mark |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Noel
Excuse me for a few minutes, I am going to try the web site you listed and come back.
Cwk2
I swear we had some Kaman demos at Ft Eustis. wuldnt surprise me if Johnson pushed Bell. |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | I'm back and that was an edifying web site
1953 was a meeting of strange bedfellows, I joined the Army to become a helicopter mechanic, my Dad's cousin, Admiral Felix Stump, became Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, and Kaman was delivering helicopters to the Pacific fleet. I now recognize those ship based rescue choppers that I have seen in various videos of the era. I don't believe we in the Army had any contact with those machines at that time, Army and Navy were almost as much at war as UN and North Korea. I personally had to fight 5 or 6 sailors at a coffee shop outside of Ft. Eustis, where me, the waitresses, and sundry others threw them through the plate glass window and continued to fight outside until the MPs arrived. They, the sailors, were apprehended and shipped back to Norfolk in irons, I was asked by the MPs if I wanted to be reccomended for a battle citation, which I declined and accepted a ride back to the base. The owner of the coffee shop nicknamed me "tiger" and gave me free coffee and donuts from then on as he felt we had stemmed a foreign invasion in the bud. That was how the Army and Navy co-existed at that time.
Bailey |
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Kaman lore...
