Hiller Air Tug
The Hiller Air Tug was a proposal sent to NASA in 1965 for an extremely large super heavy lift helicopter.[1][2][3]
The concept was breath taking in its ambition. The Air Tug would fly over a thousand miles and loiter in the recovery area. The S-IC booster having been modified to include parachutes and slings would glide down on a specific trajectory. The helicopter would match descent profiles and catch the hook in the uppermost parachute. The engineers at Hiller Aircraft Advanced Planning & Research Division had calculated 3 catch attempts would be possible.
The enormous booster would then be winched up to the helicopter and secured for the thousand mile flight back to the launch site where the booster would be lowered into a special landing cradle to avoid damage during landing.
References[edit]
- ^ A proposal to NASA: Rotary Wing system for Booster Recovery. Report No.65-5, Hiller Advanced Planning & Research Division, Hiller Aircraft company, Palo Alto, California, 1 May 1965
- ^ Day, Dwayne, Monster chopper, The Space Review, 28th January 2008, https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1045/1
- ^ The Hiller Air Tug, Hiller Aviation Museum, 23rd September 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHaxySnEPTc