How About Some Huskies

[Mark Nankivil]

Hi Michael -

My guess at Pima is that when the wind picks up, the last thing you need is a bunch of rotor blades flailing away. Put it indoors and put on the blades!

Tell us more MustangPilot - would like to hear what it's like defying gravity that way

The Kaman K-Max is reasonably plentiful and mechanically is much the same as the H-43. I see there's a few H-43s still fighting fires and working logging operations.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[Brad]

I have 9000 hours flying helicopters and about 25 in the Husky. It fly's like NOTHING else! It needs constant attention.

Me sitting across from you saying "Dang, You didn't seem to have this much trouble hovering the Huey or Cobra" might not have helped..

More pictures of said Husky, courtesy of Mustangpilot

[Glyn]

I have 9000 hours flying helicopters and about 25 in the Husky. It fly's like NOTHING else! It needs constant attention.

You have twice the number of rotary hours as myself so you can be quite sure I'll listen most carefully to what you have to say on the Kaman Huskie.

[Mark Nankivil]

Nice pics there! So at the next airshow, the Husky hovers in close to the burning Yugo and puts out the flames with the foam retardant. Oh yeah, I'll pay to see that!

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[Matt Gunsch]

Mosely aviation used to operate several HH-43 for long line logging, fire fighting, heavy lift and crop dusting. I have watched a Husky pick up 2 full Bambi Buckets. I have flown in the Husky while crop dusting and it has no problem doing pedal turns. The field we were doing had 30-40ft tall trees on 3 sides and we had no problem getting over them and turning for the next pass.

[Pogo]

Oh, Man! I clearly recall watching those things overfly the house when I was coming up, and you can believe I was paying close attention 'cuz choppers is the birds what brung me to aviation. Well, today the ol' memory banks don't perform nearly as well I as I'd wish, but it seems pretty stubborn in my head that I remember those things emitting their exhaust from that stovepipe coming out the back in intermittent puffs, instead of a continuous stream of "flue gasses" as you'd expect. Is that right, and if so, why?? I mean, the thing would be grinding along with that huge tail pipe obviously visible - a salient feature, actually - but not blowing anything out . . . and then POOF! . . . a cloud of black jet exhaust. I seem to remember a hideously long time between poofs, too, like five or ten seconds? This is one of the great mysteries of my childhood.

I always had to wonder about that red-lettered warning posted on the rotor masts, and have always been curious as to how many casualties were in the act of stepping closer to see what it said, when . . . ?

[mustangpilot]

It's not bad to fly. Just different! You need to plan out your approach and stay in front of it. Lowering the pitch too much and you lose total yaw control. Yaw is controlled by pitch in the blades. No pitch, no yaw control. It is very stable to fly, almost too stable! In a good wind is where it becomes a handful. It tries to swap ends on you in a good gust. This is why the newer Kmax has the long tail. It's a rush though!

There are no H-43's fighting fires or logging anymore. The two that are left are parked. There is one flying ship at the Kaman factory but not sure if its still flying. This may be the only one left flying the world.