The Greatest & Deadliest Helicopters of The 20th Century [4K] | The Greatest Ever | Spark

[Music] [Music] one tonight the greatest ever goes in search of the ultimate helicopter helicopters don't really fly they vibrate so badly the ground rejects them it's the magic carpet of the sky the things that it can do that no other flying vehicle can do to earn the right to be the greatest ever helicopter the machines must prove their worth they have a greater potential than other aircraft to change the world on a battlefield supporting troops or if it means out in the bush putting out fires there really is nothing that can match the performance of a helicopter it's the ultimate extension of the human body that allows him total freedom over the whole planet fly helicopter is great because you feel free it is an exhilarating experience to fly a helicopter [Music] to fly is heavenly the hover is divine we're going to push these helicopters to the limit turning the world's fastest upside down we'll deliver a glass of champagne the hard way in a force eight gale and discover just how deadly they can be ten machines but only one can hold the title greatest ever helicopter starting our countdown is the greatest aerial crane ever built at number 10 it's the ericsson air crane [Music] the erickson aircrane is the most powerful most versatile helicopter in the western world this particular helicopter is the sports car of heavy lift helicopters bar none there's maybe some that lift more but none that move faster it's a fun machine to fly it's very agile very quick and has a lot of horsepower for heavy lift of heavy equipment into really difficult situations it is absolutely without pier the aircrane can lift an incredible 12 and a half tons but its real strength is in its ability to place these colossal loads with absolute precision in 1976 an aircrane topped off toronto cn tower at 553 meters it's the tallest freestanding structure in the world the aircrank really is a swiss army knife of the skies the capabilities of it from a aerial crane if we're talking about uh ski towers if we're talking about hella logging or if we're talking about from a firefighting perspective there really is nothing else out there that will match on the capabilities it's amazing it can scoop up 2 000 gallons of water in a mere 45 seconds which is absolutely fabulous it can refill its tank and as little as 45 centimeters of water so if we're looking in areas such as california when they have the santa ana fires these aircraft have actually gone in and they're allowed to basically go after water sources anywhere this might mean your pool in your backyard and there has been instances where the heli tanker has gone in and sucked out someone's pool originally designed to recover downed aircraft and move heavy military equipment the air crane now excels in its civilian clothes in the remote forests of canada its precision lift capability has given it a new role in a place where no other vehicle can go it's become the ultimate logger it's an odd thing to see when you look at it you're thinking is it it's like prehistoric yet futuristic there really is nothing pretty about the air crane it's actually the nickname is the dragonfly helicopters aren't designed for style points they're designed to fulfill a job i mean a tractor trailer isn't as pretty as a ferrari but a ferrari can't haul 40 tons of cargo and there are times in life when you need to get 40 tons of bricks or fertilizer or whatever from from point a to point b its lack of style is really based on giving as much functionality as it can wanting to get rid of as much of the fuselage clap trap and the weight so that you've got the most payload that you can possibly pick up it's basically nothing but engines i'm absolutely minimal airframe and a rotor system there's nothing there that's there for aesthetics or looks it's just there to lift stuff vertically [Music] and lifting is what the aircrane is good at as the co-pilot monitors the dials the pilot leans out and manipulates the hydraulic grapple a difficult task as the grapple is on the end of a 200 foot cable the jaws can exert over 32 000 pounds of pressure to hold the logs which can weigh up to 10 000 pounds each but this muscle power comes at a premium the cost operates the aircrane you're looking at nine thousand dollars us per hour that's before you start adding the fuel costs for the aircraft i would say in a just an average logging cycle the aircraft burns about 500 us gallons of fuel an hour so it's a thirsty bird overall that's a whopping 10 000 us dollars per hour the real key to its success is to keep it flying as often as you can and as regularly as you can because it costs so much money to operate with so much money at stake speed is definitely the name of the game a skilled aircrane pilot can lift 45 bundles of trees from mountain to landing zone in one hour i guess the object of the game is to be as fast as you can and as smooth as you can at this rate the aircrane clears up to a thousand trees a day with each log worth up to five thousand us dollars that's a turnover of five million dollars a day compare that to the daily cost of the air crane just a hundred and forty thousand dollars and it's suddenly an incredibly economic tool like everything else it's a compromise it's very thirsty in fuel but uh and it's not designed for going long distances it's designed to lift loads and it does that well there is really nothing out there that can match the performance of the air crane and i think you're going to see it in the sky it's probably for another 20 or 30 years i think that the air crane could be called the muscle man of heavy lift helicopters i think it's one of the greatest helicopters i've ever flown um definitely my mo the most favorite machine that i've ever flown and i don't know if i'd really want to fly anything else the air crane is an incredible lifting machine but without a cargo area its hauling capability is limited to external loads for that it gets 10th place coming up nine more fantastic helicopters including the ultimate transport machine if we can tie a sling to it we can take it plus we toast the most courageous chopper in the sky when you see it coming over the horizon you know the cavalry have arrived as we search for the greatest ever helicopter and in our search to find the greatest ever helicopter the ericsson air crane claimed the number 10 slice [Music] and at number nine is a machine that scaled new heights of helicopter design it is the llama [Music] the llama of course is the highest flying helicopter ever in 1972 the aircraft actually flew to an altitude of 41 000 feet frenchman jean-boulez's incredible 12 442 meter record still stands to this day over 30 years later if you put that perspective today that's where you're looking at where airliners would be flying if you're looking at a 747 or anything in that range that's typically the altitudes that those aircraft will be flying at the llama was originally designed for the indian air force to defend their high altitude borders in the himalayan mountains the llama is amazing because it does many things that the ordinary helicopter cannot do most helicopters operate efficiently up to around eight to ten thousand feet in other words fairly close to the ground the llama however can operate very efficiently in the twenty thousand feet altitudes to operate at such high altitude the llama had to overcome the laws of physics the problem with flying at altitude is a lack of oxygen molecules in any given square foot of air space the higher you go the basically the thinner the air gets and there's really less and less for the rotor blades to bite into less air for the engine to breathe at 20 000 feet the air is less dense and cuts the engine's performance in half the llama uses a very powerful engine it's 870 horsepower provides over twice the amount of vertical thrust of all other helicopters in its weight class the engine itself is capable of blowing up the transmission at lower altitudes up until 13 000 feet you're not able to use all the power that the engine provides and from 13 000 feet above you are to utilize all this power the llama has the lightest airframe possible it's really nothing more than a bubble for the pilot to sit in attached to an open tail boom its only additional equipment is to enable the pilot to operate at altitude this is probably the only civilian aircraft in the country that is set up with an oxygen system without the oxygen it would be impossible for the pilot to breathe above 12 000 feet if i have a problem of any type uh you know 14 000 foot or above that's that's an environment that i can't live in it's a pretty dangerous situation i probably have half hour 45 minutes of useful consciousness once my oxygen was depleted and uh probably take a big nap after that point why do i like the llama when i see it because it's like a little wasp it's lightweight and it buzzes around but you know that it's got huge capability there is nothing else out there today that would compare to the aircraft it was meant to do one thing and that was fly at high altitude but a helicopter designed with one purpose in mind limits what it can be used for so the llama gets ninth place if you've got loads of cargo and want it shifted in a hurry then a helicopter at number eight is the beast for you it's the greatest transport helicopter ever it is the chinook the chinook ugly beast it's a bit of a laugh it's a fun helicopter kids love it unlike most helicopters the chinook has two main intermeshing rotors this gives it incredible amounts of power there's an additional efficiency from having two lifting rotors you don't waste any power on a tail rotor so chanuk becomes a very powerful lifting helicopter with a great capacity to carry a lot of people and a lot of load it can lift a massive 12 tons inside or out and not only that with a flight control system based on that of a 747 this chinook is one of the smoothest rides in the sky this system maintains heading altitude airspeed and any other control that i deem necessary in order to get from point a to point b as well as its flight control systems the chinook has a complex gearbox to prevent the intermeshing rotors from hitting one another other than that it's just like flying any other helicopter the flight controls in the chinook are identical as that in a regular helicopter the cycling stick forward makes the aircraft go forward the eric cycling stick aft is going to slow the aircraft down application to the left will make the aircraft turn left and an application of right cyclic will make the aircraft turn right the thrust control in the chinook uh normally referred to as the collective in other aircraft we here in the chinook call it thrust control me pulling up on the thrust control will make the aircraft climb and the reduction in thrust or power will make the aircraft descend the tail rotor pedals in conventional aircraft are used to control the tail rotor and enable the aircraft to turn about its own axes at a hover the same function is true for the pedals on the chinook a lightly loaded chinook is like a sports car has unbelievable handling and response and it's a delight to fly when it's heavily loaded it's still a delight to fly but you have to think a little more ahead of time because of the inertia of the helicopter even carrying its maximum load the chinook can still fly at over 160 miles an hour this is the center cargo of the aircraft it provides us the capability of lifting up to 12 tons if you consider that the helicopter for example is capable of lifting 50 000 pounds altogether and it only weighs 30 000 pounds you've got quite a bit of extra thrust capability that you can use and it is just an incredible rush to just lift off the ground and climb vertically at two thousand three thousand feet a minute almost immediately off the ground the chinook is always the right tool for the job just based on its uh on its multitude of roles if we can tie a sling to it we can take it but the chinook is so much more than just a versatile heavy lifter we have coined the chinook our box of legos just based on its multitude of roles that it can assume one of them when we do joint training with the u.s special forces and we're doing water extractions by that i mean that the aircraft will physically land in the water we will lower the ramp water will enter the cabin area allowing the boat to physically drive into the aircraft the green beret guys come zooming up in their zodiac drive the boat right into the hull of the airplane the airplane takes off dumps the water and flies home and i didn't believe that until they showed me a picture of it the chinook is a truly awesome machine and i wouldn't fly anything else the chinook is a workhorse it's a solid reliable piece of machinery that lifts loads carries heavy weights and does it in all kinds of good conditions it's got a great big fuselage you can pack lots of troops and equipment in it it truly is a versatile machine for the military operator the chinook is undoubtedly the greatest transport helicopter ever and it gets eighth place at number seven is a helicopter that everyone knows it's the jet ranger [Music] what i like about the jet ranger is that it's got style it's a bit like a classic car you know it's a child of the 60s really the jet ranger is probably one of the most attractive machines that's ever been designed and built yes the jet ranger is one of the greatest helicopters because it was the first civil helicopter that looked nice it was designed by a designer not by a aircraft person and they just created this outside mold line and then went out and flew it and started selling them like hotcakes since it first flew bell has sold more than 4 500 jet ranges making it the most prolific civilian helicopter on the planet with energy absorbing landing gear and seats rupture resistant fuel cells and over 54 million trouble-free flight hours it's also the safest helicopter ever not bad for something that started out as a failure bell helicopter had designed or developed the jet ranger 1961 as a light observation helicopter for the us army it actually lost the the contract that went to hughes with the oh six but bell then they moved forward and they developed the jet ranger into a commercial variant the jet ranger has been brilliant for executive use as a private helicopter and for civil applications however the interesting thing was that after they had built a whole lot of civil versions of it the military came back again and they ordered the helicopter as the belk iowa it's not all death and destruction the rangers ability to fly at over 120 miles an hour to a range of almost 430 miles has made it excellent for scenic tours and construction news gathering and law enforcement truly a forward of the skies what is its weakness i would have to say now it's its age it's an old very old design mid-60s design the engine is a mid-60s concept engine it's not particularly fast and it's not the most comfortable helicopter in the back slightly over complex and unnecessarily clever in places it didn't need to be but it conjures up it is the image of a helicopter in millions of people's minds it brought a new style to helicopters it made them an attractive proposition for executive operators and for commercial users of helicopters in a way that had never happened prior to the aircraft arriving although our number one bestseller it only makes our number seven due to its old design and cramped conditions at number six is a long-range helicopter that can fly in any type of weather it is the sea king when you see it coming over the horizon you know the cavalry have arrived well obviously if the most powerful person in the world can fly on a sea king then the aircraft is good enough for anyone the sea king is a really versatile helicopter it combines range it combines physical lifting capacity and it combines a large fuselage which can carry troops can carry a lot of equipment and can be changed quickly by an operator from one role to another the sea king was designed for u.s navy shipboard operations it first flew an incredible 46 years ago the sea king was really the first helicopter of its kind turbine powered twin engine all-weather capability nothing else out there could match it for its life on the ocean wave the sea king had some innovative design features it was also the first aircraft to have a blade fold capability which made them portable on ships it also had a tail fold capability which was the first helicopter to have that as well the seaking is also unique in shape because it has the boat hull shape to it the aircraft can actually land in water if required but the sea king's special features weren't only on the outside aircraft's got an autopilot that allows you to fly in any weather and establish yourself in the hover even over the pitch black sea when the aircraft was developed originally in 1959 it was basically developed for one thing and that was detect track and destroy submarines the sea king would hover and drop its sonar boy down into the ocean and then wait and listen for submarines sometimes for hours on end trying to hover for that length of time often at night was impossible to do so a sophisticated autopilot system was developed covering a helicopter is like balancing this pole i want to make sure this stays vertical so i need to keep looking at the top of this pole so if we start doing this i can do this fairly easily i'm now hovering and i'm making small corrections all the time down here now if we're going to do this in the middle of the night over the ocean we have no references i can't see anything the ocean is dark the sky is dark there's no horizon the only thing i can do to simulate that is close my eyes and that's what the sea king has is the stabilization system to keep this upright if you will over the ocean in the middle of the night the flight control system works by emitting doppler radar and radio waves to detect the sea king's position and automatically makes any adjustments to pitch roll and heading to keep the aircraft steady the sea king is probably the most stable platform of all helicopters this superb stability has allowed the sea king to excel in probably its most famous role search and rescue when you are flying into the mountains at night in snow and poor weather you want to feel safe and the seeking gives you the sense of security that you need to be able to go and rescue somebody from one of those dangerous situations precision flying is the sea king's forte getting into tight situations in all types of weather with no room for error but when you compare the handling of this aircraft to more modern aircraft what you tend to find is that it handles a bit more like a truck than a sports car and when you're tucked up close against the cliff actually what you don't want is a particularly fast response to control input so when i'm flying this helicopter i know exactly how it's going to respond and actually it's perfect for what i want it to do it's critical that you can hold a stable hover because there's a brave guy on the end of that rescue winch who's putting his life in your hands while he tries to rescue somebody else if you make a mistake the implications of that could be potentially fatally the greatest ever is going to put the sea king to the test its crew is about to deliver a glass of champagne the hard way smells good to me winchman dixie will be lowered 60 meters below the aircraft and attempt to pour the fears into a glass lieutenant martin lanny must position the sea king alongside the rock face and hold a steady hover this is a true test of precision flying easy right anyone easy easy he's with him he's now got the jumpers well it is the ultimate search mercy helicopter because he's a big friendly beast and you know you stand with this aircraft if i was a yachtsman sitting in the middle of the sea and i saw the sea king coming towards me i'd have a great degree of confidence it's not the biggest but it's large enough to put lots of casualties troops or stores in it's got a fairly long range up to about five hours flying it's fast enough for the role it's going to be used for so although it's not at the cutting edge of all of those examples it does everything well enough to make it excellent for purpose the sea king's incredible robustness and flight controls have made it the ultimate search and rescue helicopter it's the sixth greatest ever helicopter we're halfway through our countdown of helicopters so far we've had heavy lift champions machines that took helicopter design to new heights but still to come the fastest chopper on the planet and the most lethal helicopter ever built that's a real death machine they say don't run away you'll just die tired as we search for the greatest ever helicopter we've another five machines to fly before we find out which one is the greatest ever but first a helicopter that can outrun any other it's the ferrari of the skies and it's our number five it's the westland lynx it's the fastest production helicopter ever it's a marvelous aircraft to fly but for many reasons it's extremely powerful aircraft it's very agile very maneuverable and very responsive the lynx is unique really in its field it has changed the whole way that telecopter operators can use an aircraft in battle conditions the lynx was designed during the cold war to ambush tanks using its optically tracked tower missiles quite an expensive system we also used to equate one missile as being the equivalent of firing a bmw m3 but the deadly tau missiles are just the beginning it's the linx's incredible maneuverability that has made it such a formidable fighting machine the thing about the lynx is that it is an advanced design and a lot of thought has gone into the rotor head which allow it to be extremely agile it's one piece titanium rotor head is practically fused onto the main fuselage when the control input is made in a conventional helicopter as you start to move the rotor will tilt and then a second or so later the body will follow with the links as you make the control input and even called a small control input the actual fuselage and the head will move together as one piece the lynx is one of the most agile helicopters ever made but that's not its only distinction the lynx is the fastest recorded helicopter ever it holds the world speed record still at an amazing 200 miles an hour the lynx has held the world speed record for over 30 years well the main reason really why the aircraft is so fast it's thanks to the burp blade technology but blade being the british experimental rotor profile and as you can see from the blades behind me on the end is a sort of paddle affair which helps the blades move faster the burp tip is basically a swept tip on the end of the rotor it has very similar benefits that you have on the swept wings of conventional commercial airplanes that fly at high subsonic speeds it reduces the drag if you have less drag then that same amount of power will allow you to get more speed because of its speed and agility the links can do for military operators things that helicopters have not been able to do ever before but it's in the hands of the british army's blue eagles display team that the lynx really shows what it can do the greatest ever persuaded them to explain their most tricky maneuver turning a helicopter upside down loop loop go the loop is the most difficult maneuver to get absolutely right because really the aircraft doesn't really want to do it it's a real coordinated maneuver coordinated with both the cyclic stick with the pedals and also the collective movement so the old analogy of rubbing your head and patting your stomach really does come true when trying to fly the loop i will raise the power lever gently back all i then do is pull back as fast as i can on the stick and the aircraft goes straight over on itself jimmy coming around back six to the slotted to the left bit more pedal round power it's just really committing to the maneuver and ensuring that you go all the way back over the top and don't spend too much time upside down otherwise you will just gently be sucked towards the ground lynx classic british excellence in its field the lynx is like a lynx it goes fast and it hits its prey quickly and it's a really remarkable fighting machine it does everything that you want it to do and more and i've never flown a helicopter that's better the lynx's remarkable speed and agility make it a unique machine and earn it the title fifth greatest ever helicopter at number four is a true giant of the skies it's the largest most powerful helicopter ever made it's the mill 26. [Music] the mill 26 is the gargantuan of the helicopters everything is big even the pilots are big it is the largest it is the most powerful helicopter that is out there there is nothing that comes close to it it's huge it's very very capable very simple it was a russian solution to a russian problem the problem was how to transport nuclear missiles to remote siberia during the cold war the answer was to build the largest helicopter in the world with the capability to lift forty thousand pounds there is nothing that outlives the mi-26 it's 40 meters long 6.5 meters wide as tall as two double-decker buses if you need to move something that's that's extremely heavy above what a chinook or what an aircrane can move there's only one aircraft that you can turn to and that is the mi-26 the mill 26 can lift an incredible 20 tonnes the equivalent of lifting two chinooks at the same time either externally or inside its cargo hold it's the same size as a hercules and large enough to fit four family cars or 100 parachutists whatever your needs may be with its huge payload you need to do something extraordinary to lift it off the ground with the mill 26 of course the designers were faced with the problem of getting the maximum lift that they could because it's a heavy helicopter and it has a heavy lift capability and the answer to that was to put more blades onto the rotor hub the me 26 is the lonely 8 blades helicopter in the world each blade has a length of around 15 meters and with a weight of approximately 300 kilos and what gives those blades such enormous lift the most powerful engines ever put on a helicopter okay here we are the heart of the mi-26 two engines called d-136 of 12 000 horsepower each the fuel consumption is around two and a half tons an hour so that means around 3 000 liters that's a lot of fuel but there is quite a lot of horses too in fact that's over 50 times more powerful than a ferrari the size is huge the size of the helicopter the size of the engine is used but the size of what the helicopter can perform is huge too the mill was used in the cleanup of chernobyl and today operates in some of the most hostile environments around the globe welcome to the hugest helicopter cockpit of the hugest helicopter in the world it's big for a reason it takes two pilots an engineer navigator and load master to fly this beast of course the mill 26 comes with some problems for a western operator they've all been designed in russian and they come with russian instruction manuals so it can be quite complicated converting to operating an aircraft like the mill 26 in a non-russian environment would we have ever built one in the west probably not we couldn't justify the expense of designing and producing and certifying it whether for civil or military use it's very exciting to fly it because i think the main reason is because it's the biggest one of the world well i think it's like a great big russian bear and it really moves the equipment and it gives a lot of muscle the mill 26 summing it up a machine to move mountains the mill 26 is definitely the most powerful helicopter ever but unless you have a job big enough it's just too expensive to run so it gets fourth place at number three is an aircraft that has changed the face of warfare it's the world's deadliest helicopter it's the apache longbow apache is the ultimate fighting machine it's a good efficient aircraft with really nasty efficient weapons it'll ruin your whole day if it's coming after you the apache is not meant to look nice but underneath its ugly outer shell is the most sophisticated helicopter ever designed as requirements for helicopters have evolved over the years this has really driven the requirement for mission equipment for avionics far more than it has driven the requirements for how fast or how far a helicopter can fly each apache longbow is fitted with over 12 million dollars worth of avionics equipment all intent on getting the kill it has very highly integrated electronics and optics to let you fly the aircraft in the middle of the night like it was broad daylight and go out and shoot tanks and that's really pretty spectacular it's mast mounted radar a nose-mounted day and night vision systems allow the pilot to clearly detect and identify targets up to five miles away and in order to accurately aim his weapons the pilot relies on his integrated headset once we have the helmet on then we actually take what's called the helmet display unit and attach it to the right side of our helmet once it's attached what it does is it rotates around sits on my right cheek and then this little catheter ray tube basically a little tv screen slides up and into place so that i can actually get information displayed from my night vision sensor so that when i turn my head left and right up and down i can actually see where i'm looking at with my night vision sensor and additionally it gives me information as far as a aiming point when my crosshair is inside there so when i turn my head i can actually put my crosshairs on the target squeeze the trigger and then round zoom packed on a target but this precision sighting system is nothing without the weapons it controls the longbow apache has three main weapon systems on board of it it's got the 30 mm chain gun which is uh right underneath the copilot station if i'm attacked by something out my right door i can literally turn my head look out to the right and down and squeeze the trigger and rounds will burst on target it just follows my line of sight no matter where i'm looking left right up down it's going to follow my head movement it's got a range about 4 200 meters it's got a rate of fire about 650 rounds per minute this is a rocket pod and it shoots what's called 2.75 inch folding fin arrow rockets if we have troops in the open that we just want to make them button up stop shooting this kind of thing we can shoot rockets animals it's not necessarily going to go exactly to the point where you're trying to aim it it's going to go in that general area of all the weapons it's the hellfire missiles that are the most deadly the hellfire missile system is our primary weapon system on board the longbow apache with the help of the us army apache squadron at fort rucker alabama the greatest ever got to see the sheer firepower of these hellfire missiles each missile costs a whopping 85 000 us dollars and the apache carries eight of them they're guided by a laser beam which is programmed to the crosshairs on the pilot's sights with the help of its fire control system the aircraft scans the battlefield identifying up to 1 000 separate targets it prioritizes the most dangerous and initiates an attack the pilot then marks the target with his laser beam and fires the missile all this can be done in under 10 seconds [Music] once fired the missile accelerates beyond mach 1. it takes less than 40 seconds to destroy a target 5 miles away [Music] the apaches awesome firepower has made it one of the most feared weapons ever i suppose for the soldier on the ground the one thing that he fears most of all is seeing a an attack helicopter coming over the top of those trees and the apache is the one helicopter i would not like to see coming towards me that's a real death machine they say don't run away you'll just die tired you look into three different weapon systems we have on board and the different roles that we can perform in combat it is without a doubt the most lethal attack helicopter in the world the apache is certainly the most lethal helicopter ever but it comes with a hefty price tag 25 million dollars it's the third greatest ever helicopter if you think a flying car is a thing of the future you need to think again our second greatest helicopter is the amazing robinson r22 [Music] the robinson revolution has has made a simple helicopter which is finally a practical helicopter for the individual this has been a dream ever since world war ii that you could have a personal flying vehicle which would do exactly the same thing as your automobile that has come true with the r22 the two-seat r22 and its big brother the four-seat r44 with a brainchild of one man frank robinson a board helicopter designer who in 1973 set out to bring flying to the masses at that time i was already 43 and it did bother me that i had not really started what i thought was would be my life's work my real life's work was to design and build a small personal type of helicopter so i decided to just go ahead and gamble everything and give it a try it would be easier to accept if i knew that i had tried and failed than if i had never tried it all it was the right decision to take and robinson annual sales now exceed 200 million dollars the guy is a total genius and a revolutionary he has made a revolution in helicopters the revolution was in the simplicity of the design i visualized the type of helicopter that i would want myself now i would want to use it and i wanted a helicopter that required very very little maintenance and one that was much lower in cost than existing helicopters what frank robinson did was strip away everything that was unnecessary the r22 is so lightweight that it can run on an inexpensive piston engine usually used in light airplanes this is set to draw only 75 of its total power making it very reliable and long-lasting without compromising performance it can fly faster travel further and carry more than any other in its class earning it a unique place amongst helicopters what is the robinson gut that no other helicopter has commercial success at this end of the market we compare that just the sheer numbers of aircraft that are delivered by robinson we're talking 17 a week if we compare that with other tournament helicopters out there we might be talking one up to maybe three a week frank robinson has now sold 6 000 helicopters r22s and r44s that's an unbelievable record for this end of the market no one else has come close to that volume of sales it's affordable it's reliable it's efficient it's fast it's practical it's about the first time a helicopter has been seriously practical as personal transport the r22 slashed the price of a helicopter to a quarter of what it was before at just 185 000 it's the same price as a top-end mercedes and that's made flying possible for practically anyone i designed it not as a trainer but i designed it as a personal helicopter but it's also turned out to be a good trainer it produces a very good quality pilot [Music] it's not necessarily the easiest helicopter to learn to fly but as you learn to fly it you're developing the best habits the robinson r22 is today the most popular training aircraft for new pilots this really is the marker stone of what the what the personal helicopter is going to be practical reliable efficient easy simple just brilliant robinson helicopters now operate in over 60 countries around the globe making it arguably one of the most ubiquitous helicopters ever it's our second greatest helicopter we've counted down nine incredible machines in our top 10 search to find the greatest ever helicopter but which one gets first place we're about to find out in our search to find the greatest ever helicopter we've gone through nine groundbreaking machines all of them incredible helicopters but none as revolutionary as our number one [Music] flown into battles the world over and immortalized in movies such as apocalypse now it's nearly 50 years old and it is the icon of helicopters it's the bell uh-1 there is no other helicopter that is as recognizable as the huey if you think helicopter most people will instantly have a vision of the uh-1 the huey which of course is the uh-1 and that's how it got its name was the archetypal vietnam helicopter the huey is the machine that we rode to war it it took us in and brought us back safely the uh-1 first appeared in vietnam in 1963. from an initial order of 60 helicopters the u.s army went on to deploy over 7 thousand my name is steve vermillion i'm a retired army officer after 26 years my role in the uh-1 was initially as a as a co-pilot in vietnam and then an aircraft commander my name's burl dooley and i was a door gunner on uh-1 in vietnam 1963. my training as a door gunner consisted of giving me an m2 carbine flying out over the mekong river and putting some bullets into the river and then i was a train door gunner what is impressive for me about huey is that you can do anything with it it's like a flying truck it was built around an open box and so you can take the doors off and you can put anything that you like inside a huey and that made it hugely versatile when it was operating in vietnam and other battle conditions the huey was the first mass-produced helicopter with a turbine engine this nearly doubled the speed it could fly at and meant it could lift nearly twice as much payload the huey was very simplistic in design but it was a very rugged helicopter in vietnam the us army lost only one helicopter for every 8 000 missions that were flown during the conflict the huey's toughness is legendary uh-1 took a lot of damage and we keep on flying you can take multiple hits in the rotor system the fuselage unless it hit a major structural component it would just keep flying the feeling everyone had is something bad always happened to the other person never happened to you when you get out of the helicopter and you begin to inspect it then you start seeing where the holes and the exit points were say damn that was within about an inch of my head uh that's real close uh but here again uh big sky little bullet concept they have to hit you to kill you probably the most iconic of the huey's features is its sound oh the quick answer is sound like the sound of freedom the noise from the uh-1 dominantly comes because of its two-bladed rotor and the those are really uh almost shock waves that are coming off there today helicopters are built to be a little more friendly they make them quieter they design the blades so that there's not near as much noise the heli was really designed and built in the 1950s and back then the evolution of the helicopter was still fairly new so they hadn't really designed the blade to be quiet they just designed the thing to fly back in vietnam the troops could hear it coming from miles away and know that some form of aid or support was coming to him anytime i hear that it just says there's my brother flying today the greatest ever is giving steve and burl the chance to fly once again in a uh-1 looking good this one looks in a lot better shape than the last couple i flew it doesn't have bullet holes in it all all the parts are on it that's good that's great you know the last time i flew a huey was 20 years ago to be able to fly it today will be a special thrill it's a coming home i mean it's like when i quit flying to huey i lost a family member and now i'm being rejoined with a family member now for the first time in 20 years steve gets his chance to take the controls [Music] okay i got controls again thank you oh yeah this feels great you know the sights and the sounds and the smell and uh you know i don't bring back negative memories and it brings back positive memories and uh being bonded once again between man and machine the terrain we're flying over is uh you know very similar to some of the stuff we were flying over in vietnam brings back a lot of memories as a door gunner i'd really be concentrating right out here and to the back of the helicopter again that's where i'm going to receive fire if i receive a call even after 42 years it all comes back i think i could still do a pretty good job as a store gun or if i had to the huey is of all these helicopters the greatest of all time the huey is a classic and i think it always will be what's the most remarkable thing about the uh-1 its longevity uh is simplicity uh and uh probably the people who flew it i didn't expect to be back in europe again uh until they threw my ashes down over some place yeah to be determined the helicopter is great it can do any job assigned to it and is very very it's an outstanding helicopter if i were reactivated today and sent to iraq i'd like to have a huey with a life spanning 50 years and counting the huey has prevailed in conflict been immortalized in movies and embraced in the hearts and minds of those who've flown it it is the greatest ever helicopter

Channel: Spark

Views: 581,566

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary

Id: kzeILI657xo

Length: 51min 34sec (3094 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 03 2021