XCH-62 Boeing-Vertol Heavy Lift Project
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XCH-62 Boeing-Vertol Heavy Lift Project
Was reading up on the Heavy Lift history for the US Army, and tripped over a few stories about the XCH-62 (Boeing Vertol).
(It looks like a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane had a baby with a Chinook, and it was huge).
The Sikorsky proposed offering for the Heavy Lift project was the S-73, which lost out to the XCH-62 - which itself was canceled in 1975.
Are any of the test pilots who worked on that project still alive?
I am not sure if "the design torque and speed" means rotor speed/transmission speed, or actually airborne and flying. The article on Wikipedia suggests to me that the whole thing never go airborne.
My first run through of some archival info at DTIC doesn't reflect a flight test.
(I have an inkling that the funding cut was associated with the general defense draw down related to the end of the Viet Nam war.)
Part of what intrigues me about that project is that it was going to be fly by wire in the 1970's.
EDIT:
(I finally got my answer: it never did fly. See the bottom paragraph of this page).
(It looks like a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane had a baby with a Chinook, and it was huge).
The Sikorsky proposed offering for the Heavy Lift project was the S-73, which lost out to the XCH-62 - which itself was canceled in 1975.
Are any of the test pilots who worked on that project still alive?
The U.S. Army's XCH-62 HLH aft rotor transmission was finally successfully tested at full design torque and speed, but the US Congress cut funding for the program in August 1975
My first run through of some archival info at DTIC doesn't reflect a flight test.
In 1983, NASA and DARPA ( Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) plans were initiated to resume a Heavy Lift Research Vehicle [HLRV] test program, with a possible first flight in 1985, but was cancelled again.
Part of what intrigues me about that project is that it was going to be fly by wire in the 1970's.
EDIT:
(I finally got my answer: it never did fly. See the bottom paragraph of this page).
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 2nd June 2026 at 18:33.
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 1,909
Likes: 129
From: Here
Regarding it's scrapping
https://www.hmfriends.org.uk/xch-62_hlh.htm
he Army Museum director, Steve Maxham, said:-
"It never was an aircraft. It never flew. It was essentially an incomplete concept model, the shell of an idea. It was never structurally completed. It was never mechanically completed. It was never electrically harnessed. There was only one rotorhead produced, the second was not. There were only blades made for one head. There were no drive train components. The upper structures, both fore and aft, were never manufactured. The interior was never completed. In no way, shape or form did it qualify as an aircraft, historic or otherwise."
"It never was an aircraft. It never flew. It was essentially an incomplete concept model, the shell of an idea. It was never structurally completed. It was never mechanically completed. It was never electrically harnessed. There was only one rotorhead produced, the second was not. There were only blades made for one head. There were no drive train components. The upper structures, both fore and aft, were never manufactured. The interior was never completed. In no way, shape or form did it qualify as an aircraft, historic or otherwise."
https://www.hmfriends.org.uk/xch-62_hlh.htm
