Happy daze
!!!! Hiller !
The truth is the Hiller is a man's helicopter and any wimp pilots din't last 5 minutes on it .
I flew the Hiller for 10 years, cropspraying in the summer and power line inspection,underslinging and forestry in the winter. It was poorly paid, involved long periods away from home and conditions in a Scottish forest in the depths of winter were spartan to say the least.
Despite all this they were some of the happiest times of my 35 yr. carreer.
My first full cropspraying season was on the Hiller 12C G-ARTG in 1973 it had wooden blades and 210HP Franklin engine. It was underpowered with a full load of 35GALS of chemical, I flew 260 hours in 10 weeks and the engine never missed a beat.
After that I flew the 12E ,quite a different beast 305 HP Lycoming and it would lift 70 GALS of chemical no problem. Stripped of spraygear it would lift 1,000 lbs. on the hook although 700-800 lbs. was a more realistic load with about an hours fuel. Slinging wet concrete it was possible to move well over 10 tons an hour.
The Lycoming suffered under such punishment and rarely lasted more than 800 hours despite it,s supposed life of 1200 hours. Typical engine problems would include, valve seats coming out, piston rings breaking up and conrods breaking: to name but a few.
Yes it was slow (it was never meant to be fast 84 kts VNE) yes it was not the smoothest flyer around but, at 0500 on a summers morning in the the field, climb in, pump on, 5 pumps of the throttle, magneto switch to right mag, crank the starter and feel 10 ltrs of unsilenced engine blast into life shattering the early morning calm. Oh what joy!
!!!! helicopter? I think not.