The machine was the Piasecki Helistat. By attaching four H-34's (Sikorsky S-58's) to the device. I guess they figured they had a good means of removing all those old ships from the desert and putting them to use. The project was funded by the US Forest Service and US Navy
, who believed there was a need for a new heavy lift capability.
The following is the NTSB transcript of the sole flight undertaken by the craft. Sadly one of the pilots was killed when all four machines broke loose, after they lost control of the entire device.
This Russian site (again) seems to be the sole source of a photo of this machine.
http://www.russian.ee/~star/vertigo/...elistat-r.html
Frank Piasecki is still around and Piasecki Aircraft recently won a US Airforce contract to produce a compound helicopter version of the H-60 Blackhawk. (The web site above has some pictures of the evolutionary models).
Lakehurst N.J was the center of US naval airship operations (collosal airship hangars), and is probably better known in infamy, as the site of the loss of the Hindenberg.
NTSB Identification: NYC86FHD01 . The docket is stored on NTSB microfiche number 32618.
Accident occurred Tuesday, July 01, 1986 at LAKEHURST, NJ
Aircraft:PIASECKI HELISTAT 97-34J, registration: N1897Z
Injuries: 1 Fatal, 3 Serious, 1 Minor.
The helistat, a hybrid a/c with 4 H-34 main fuselages attached to a frame along with a zpg-2 helium filled envelope had just completed it first hover test flt successfully and landed. A pwr loss was noted on the No. 3 helicopter and the test was terminated and the mooring mast called for. Prior to re-mooring a wind shift caused an uncommanded left turn which the pilot could not control with the flt controls. With a tailwind, no wheel brakes or gnd steering a takeoff was attempted. The 4 main landing gear which had no shimmy dampners started to shimmy. The four helicopters started to react to the shimmy with ground resonance. As the helistat finally lifted off, the four individual helicopters broke off and fell to the ground. One pilot received fatal injuries, 3 received serious injuries and one minor injuries. The helistat was destroyed. The prw loss on the no. 3 helicopter was traced to a missing throttle linkage correlation pin. Why the pin was missing was not determined.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:-
Throttle/power lever,linkage..disconnected
Rotorcraft flight control..inadequate
Acft/equip,inadequate design..manufacturer
Acft/equip,inadequate handling/perf capabilities..manufacturer
Contributing Factors
Landing gear,main gear..vibration
Rotor system..vibration
Landing gear,normal brake system..lack of
Landing gear,steering system..lack of
[ 27 August 2001: Message edited by: Cyclic Hotline ]