[ARC5] Helicopter Radios

[Robert Eleazer]

Speaking of choppers, there was an early helicopter that they made very few of, the Sikorsky R-6 and most of them were made by Nash-Kelvinator.  It was a far more modern looking machine than the R-4, which looked like the box a CG-4 glider came in.  The R-6 used a laminated wooden fuselage and a blown bubble dome on the front.

At the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC they had a picture of an R-6 taken from head on.  And the really neat thing about it was that just behind the pilot you could see a SCR-274-N, one transmitter and I would presume one receiver.  You rarely get so good a view of the radios in such period photographs.  I guess  a Command Set transmitter and BC-453 were about the minimum you could get by with.

Those early choppers were very very weight limited.  With the R-5, used extensively in Korea ("Bridges at Toko Ri"), at times they had to leave the 2nd crewman behind in order to carry the rescued personnel.   Occasionally they even had to leave the 2nd crewman on the front lines in order to carry the litter patients.  Anyone know what kind of radios they used in the R-4 and R-5?

By the way a great book overall but one that especially covers early helicopters in Korea very well is "Tales of a War Pilot" by Kirkland.  Using R-5's, he flew patients to a MASH unit that had a surgeon nicknamed "Hawkeye."

Wayne
WB5WSV