What kind of Helicopter is this?

[helinut]

Still don,t think its a brantly, the tail cone on those don,t raise up there straight back, still leaning towards a aluette 3 look at the nose gear its a trailing unit, and it may have the engine removed.

[daveymac82c]

My Vote is for S-51 Dragonfly.

It kind of looks like the Brantley 305 but does not have the large rotor mast (ok, so I don't know the proper term) as well, the main/rear gear on the S-51 has a large fairing on it, which is evident on the question pictures, while the Brantley 305 does not have such a design feature.

My museum used to have a Brantley 305, and it had skids so when someone suggested it might be a Brantley I figured there was no way considering the landing gear configuration, but the link to the wheeled example taught me something new today.

Cheers,

David

[P51Mstg]

The Brantley B2 had skids, the 305 was on wheels.........

The tall main rotor mast is the give away here..........

Mark H

[Ztex]

Ok...Mystery semi solved...I believe it is an S-51. I base this on further digging into my inherited photo albums. In one of the Helo albums there are photo of two of Drangonflys in the North Texas area around the same time.

First...N4925E pictured at Aero Valley, TX @ 1982. (this aircraft is currently at Pima)



Second...N92868 Pictured at an airshow at Denton, TX @ 1983 (Stated to be owned by Glenn Hyde and currently listed as being owned by the USMC at Quantico...)



So which one is it...looking at the condition of these and the one in the original pic...I would say it was the Pima Bird...




Thanks for the help!

[airnutz]

It also looks like a aouette11, there is no rotor cowl and the nose wheel sloops rearward unlike a s-51, the cabin area is too rounded and low to be a 51

Maybe an Alouette III, but the mast looks too tall. Remember, the camera is panning so some
distortion of the background is occurring. Most likely an S-51.

No, the exposed engine would have been visible had it been an Alouette III. I would bet real money that the helicopter in question is the favoured Dragonfly.

...of course your assuming I hadn't considered the turbine had been removed.

My point was, if it was an Alouette, it would be a III rather than a II. Other clues...mainly the
mast height and the exposed uncowled transmission with its supporting tubular trusswork pose
a significantly different silouette than the other suggestions. The rectangular louvered
ventilation section, midway just forward of the main LG, was the other biggy pushing me to ignore
the exagerrations of a blurred photo to believe it had to be Sikorsky S-51.

Alouette III has 1-tube trailing main LG with 1 fuse oleo strut...S-51 has a 2-tube V-main LG strut(faired
over and coated with non-skid for a work footing) with 1 oleo strut to the fuse, as other Wixers alluded to.

Of course, some Smart A will show up shortly with a story of some yayhoos custom project of installing
S-51 running gear into an Alouette III fuse...with 500 8x10 color glossy photographs..with circles and arrows..
blowing my reasoning outta the water!

Edit: Alouette III photo for comparison...
www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/alouette-3_07.jpg