How time flies! In what seems like a blink of an eye, the Hughes OH-6/500 is 60 years old today! To mark the occasion, I thought I might share a few bits of useless information I have discovered about the 500 during some research I have carried out over the last 13 years or so.
The little helicopter that wanted to fly!
The first flight is probably as good a place to start as anywhere. The first airframe to fly, a YOH-6 bearing the registration number N9696F, was not constructed as an airworthy airframe. It had been built as a ground test vehicle. Hughes found themselves in a bit of a bind though. Bell had flown their YOH-4 in December 1962 and the other competitor in the LOH contest, the Hiller YOH-5, flew for the first time in January 1963. That just left Hughes to get their entry into the air. The problem was their dedicated first prototype, N9697F, was nowhere near being ready for its maiden flight in early 1963. I’d imagine Howard Hughes was not too happy with this situation! And so N9696F was upgraded from its ground test role to being assigned the important duty of performing the first flight for an aircraft that would earn the nickname “Loach” and in the civilian world would simply be known as the “500”.
The 27th of February 1963 rolled around and test pilot James Vittitoe and test engineer Raleigh Fletcher climbed aboard the ground test vehicle that was now destined to fly. That first flight went well and resulted in a safe landing. It’s probably not true to say the flight went smoothly as apparently the prototype four-blade rotor system suffered from a serious vibration problem that plagued the early phase of the flight test programme for Hughes. They ironed out that problem and the YOH-6 went on to perform some incredible feats in just the next few years of its fledgling career as a rotary-winged hot rod.
N9696F never flew a circuit and probably never ventured beyond 30 knots either. After 13 hours of flying spent in the hover or at low speeds, N9696F was relieved of its flight duties. It work was not done however. It went on to carry out the original task for which it had been constructed, namely ground test work. It accumulated almost 800 hours of test work before it was retired. The fate of this airframe is unknown and it’s likely it was scrapped, sadly.
Looking closely at the photos, it might appear that the crew are wearing some peculiar garb for the serious work of test-flying. Both men are wearing a shirt and tie with a sports jacket! Apparently, that was the standard of dress at the time, required by Hughes, for any important flight where the crew were likely to appear in photographs in the aviation press afterwards. This practice seems to have been set aside soon after though as most subsequent Hughes flight test crews are seen to be properly decked out in flight suits.
Next time: “The name is Hughes, Howard Hughes…………..”