Semi Rigid - I know that the author of the story spoke to Piers Harvey and the info from the McDermott/214B side of the story was from him. We also contributed to the story as well. I for one am thankful that someone from the heli media came down to highlight the helicopter operations over the ship.
It’s very stable and up in the category of the Skycrane and Chinook, as a helicopter that’ll do everything extraordinarily well. Its oversize engine and oversize rotor give it tremendous capability and when you get over 40kts it climbs like nothing else. It’ll get to 10,000ft in next to no time and it holds three or four world records for time to altitude.”
This is obviously the bit of the story that you are talking about. The way I read it he is just saying the 214B is classed as a heavy lift machine, along the same lines as the Chinook or the Skycrane, not saying it can lift the same as them or is as big as them. Thats how I interpret it anyway
Cheers.
BOTW.