Kaman helicopter and non-helicopter projects

[cluttonfred]

...how about some Kaman prototypes and projects?

Here are a few, probably nothing new, mostly from the Kaman pages at www.aviastar.org. All have photos or sketches there as well.

--Kaman K-125 (1947) - Experimental prototype that proved the intermeshing twin-rotor design (one built)
--Kaman K-16B (1962) - Grumman JRF "Goose"-based VTOL amphibious convertiplane project (one built, not flown)
--Kaman K-17 (1958) - Experimental single-rotor design with cold-jet propulsion (one built)
--Kaman K-1125 "Huskie III" (1962) - Prototype enlarged, twin-turbine development of popular H-43 Huskie proposed for both civilian and military uses (one built)
--Kaman YUH-2 (1962) - Experimental compound helicopter conversion of Seasprite with added turbojet, reached 223 mph (one built)
--Kaman H-2 "Tomahawk" (1963) - Straightforward gunship conversion of successful U.S. Navy SH-2 "Seasprite" twin-turbine, single-rotor anti-submarine helicopter with four machine guns in unique dual chin turrets. Over 200 ordered, but canceled in favor of Bell UH-1s. (one built)
--Kaman K-700 (1969) - Proposed USAF rescue version of K-1125, project only.
--Kaman KSA-100 (1971)- Stowable Aircrew Vehicle Escape Rotorseat (SAVER), a jet-powered gyroplane ejection seat to allow a pilot to fly himself back to safety (one built)

For something completely different, attached is an intriguing tidbit from FLIGHT (20 January 1956) mentioning of a Kaman annular wing project funded by the USN ONR.

I would be very surprised if Kaman has never proposed an armed variant of the K-1200 "K-MAX" aerial crane. I can't believe that I am the only one to think that its narrow, single-seat fuselage and whopping 5,000 lb external payload capacity would make a fantastic "missile truck," perhaps working with other, lighter helicopters as target designators?

I am sure there are lots more Kaman protoypes and projects to share...let's see 'em!

 

[Matej]

Topic for aviation-related posts about the Kaman (unbuilt) projects. Posts about the Charles Kaman and non-aviation content should go here: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11897.0.html

 

[Hood]

A couple more Kaman projects;

K-600-4: A proposed H-43 with a Blackburn-Turbomeca Twin Turmo 600 turboshaft
K-800 Seacat: A Naval armed helicopter with Seasprite-type fuselage, stub wings, cruciform tail with psuher prop and twin turbine engines

Source: Airlife's Helicopters and Rotorcraft, Rod Simpson, 1998

 

[Stargazer]

A few Kaman projects:

1. What seems to be an early VLAR project.
2. VLAR and Spyglass projects.
3. Probably another VLAR proposal.
4. The K-6 project in model form, a projected variant the K-3/K-600 Huskie.
5. A naval drone torpedo bomber proposal, circa 1960.
6. The K-16 COIN proposal (not to be mistaken for the tilt-wing K-16B prototype).
7. The K-140 variant of the Fairey Rotodyne.
8. The K-141 variant of the Fairey Rotodyne.

 

[Stargazer]

More Kaman projects:

9. The projected K-190A passenger derivative of the K-190 prototype.
10. The K-700 rescue helicopter proposal for USAF.
11. The Rotochute concept for space capsule re-entry.
12. The Rotochute prototype.
13. An early Sealite LAMPS proposal.
14. Another early Sealite LAMPS proposal.
15 and 16. The armed AH-2 proposal (a Navy UH-2 modified).

 

[Stargazer]

• The Kaman XH-2-CCR gimballed rotor helicopter project
• The Kaman K-137 (QH-43G) of 1963, a radio-controlled drone based on the HH-43B (two built, registered as N10031/2) (c/n 167,190)

 

[Stargazer]

The Kaman Rotodyne from an old post by hesham:

 

[HeavyG]

Looks an awful lot like the Fairey Rotodyne; did Kaman plan to license-build it here in the US of A?

 

[Stargazer]

Looks an awful lot like the Fairey Rotodyne; did Kaman plan to license-build it here in the US of A?

Absolutely. US-built Rotodyne versions were developed under the K-140 and K-141 projects, but nothing came of it.

 

[Grey Havoc]

The K-MAX is going back into production: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/kaman-restarts-k-max-production-on-new-commercial-orders-413164/

 

[hesham]

The Kaman K-700 Model.

http://archive.aviationweek.com/search?QueryTerm=kaman+K-140++&DocType=All&sort=

 

[cluttonfred]

Has anyone ever seen or heard of an armed variant of the K-Max? It seems tailor-made for a relatively low-cost attack helicopter conversion perhaps with external seats for inserting special ops types like an oversize Little Bird. With a useful load of over 3,000 kg it could be outfitted with armor, sensors and countermeasures and still have quite a bit of capacity left over.

 

[hesham]

Hi,

in the USMC competition for Helicopter Observation,the tenders were;
Kaman HOK-1,Hiller Model-?,Sikorsky DS-? and Bell D-?.

http://archive.aviationweek.com/image/spread/19500807/8/2

 

[mil]

Artist's concept shows Kaman K-800 Seacat armed helicopter, proposed to Navy as a high-speed aircraft for rescue and fire-support mrssions from seaboard. Helicopter uses many components of UH-2C. Air Force version would be called Firecat.

 

[RAP]

HTK-1

 

[hugo007]

Hi all,
Some real great Kaman history on the Steven Kaman channel on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/user/swk91356/videos

 

[Stargazer]

HTK-1

Superb color photo, thanks!

 

[mil]

first versions of Kaman-1125

 

[mil]

Kaman-1125

 

[hesham]

Good morning my dears and my friends,

here is a Kaman modification to OH-6A to be fan-in-fuselage;

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a005049.pdf

 

[500 Fan]

A nice find, hesham. I saw those drawings in a NASA book at the American Helicopter Museum this year but there was no supporting text. That fills another hole in my research.

Can you say if that PDF is a recent addition to the DTIC website or has it been there all along? I have trawled that for OH-6A-related test reports but I managed to miss this one!

500 Fan.

 

[TomcatViP]

Strange that Kaman didn't know anything about rotational inertia

Krot = ½ Iw²

By enlarging the fuselage (even at equal mass) there were raising the rotational inertia what will in turn augment the necessary power divested in the counter-torque system. I am stunned by this Kaman design. Given the exquisite refinement of their complex meshed rotor, it's re-assuring to see that at least someone there was not a genius...

Especially when structural design of the tail boom were of equal efficiency

n, and assuming that the skin is stable, the maximum stress is
617 psi. It is thus clear that an aluminum semimonocoque structure would
be highly inefficient. A skin is required which is self stabilized and
is light; and a low stress allowable is no detriment. A plastic or
fiberglass-skinned sandwich with a foam core is ideal for the application

And then this incredible moment of mud pedling:

Thrust is reduced as the tail boom is lengthened; weight is
reduced it constant boom length with a smaller exit area, and it is not
immediately apparent what combination of dimensions is optimum.

Which invariably lead us to (nearly!) this momentary lapse of reason (think Pinkfloyd)

Both weight and balance are of major concern in the fan-in-fuselage design.
The tailboom must enclose a large duct area for aerodynamic efficiency,
and is therefore heavier than a tail rotor tailboom. In this particular
design, the offset from the centerline of the tail rotor drive takeoff
in the main transmission to the centerline of the fan makes another gearbox
necessary. In addition, airflow control and turning vanes are
required at the aft end of the boom, and a larger fin area is required
because the yaw moment of inertia is higher. The gross weight is therefore
increased by 7 percent, approximately.

To be latter back in this complete denial of basic engineering principle:

Use of the ducted fan has actually reduced antitorque power. Rotor
power, increased because of higher weight and vertical drag, more than
accounts for the difference in total power.

But then going further down would look like maniacal sadism so I will end there.

This absurdity should be taught in Engineering schools


[/Malice]

Moment of Inertia formula (see how at equal mass it increases as the square of R):

 

[quellish]

A nice find, hesham. I saw those drawings in a NASA book at the American Helicopter Museum this year but there was no supporting text. That fills another hole in my research.

Can you say if that PDF is a recent addition to the DTIC website or has it been there all along? I have trawled that for OH-6A-related test reports but I managed to miss this one!

500 Fan.

DTIC’s own search is not great but google indexes most of their documents - and can pull text out of PDFs that DTIC can not. Using google to search DTIC often works better

 

[hesham]

A nice find, hesham. I saw those drawings in a NASA book at the American Helicopter Museum this year but there was no supporting text. That fills another hole in my research.

Can you say if that PDF is a recent addition to the DTIC website or has it been there all along? I have trawled that for OH-6A-related test reports but I managed to miss this one!

500 Fan.

Thank you 500 Fan.

 

[Grey Havoc]

But then going further down would look like maniacal sadism so I will end there.

This absurdity should be taught in Engineering schools

Old Cold War disinfo or spy bait document that was accidently put into DTIC, perhaps? Could be even a genuine report altered for such a purpose, and the altered version was unwittingly sent in rather than the real deal.

 

[quellish]

Example:

"oh-6a site:dtic.mil"

https://www.google.com/search?q=oh-6a+site%3Adtic.mil

"site:" restricts the search results to a single site or domain.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Unknown Helicopter Slide

Good Day All -

Any ideas what helicopter this is?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/35mm-Kodachrome-Helicopter-Slide-Unknown-EXPERIMENTAL-HELO-N268B-in-June-1958/273632737598?hash=item3fb5c8393e:g:vscAAOSw-sVcKVN3

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[flateric]

Re: Unknown Helicopter Slide

Kaman K-17
http://all-aero.com/index.php/35-helicopters/copters/13043-kaman-k-17
https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/NNum_results.aspx?NNumbertxt=268B
http://archive.aviationweek.com/issue/19580414/#!&pid=72
http://archive.aviationweek.com/issue/19580512/#!&pid=122

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Re: Unknown Helicopter Slide

Thanks Flateric!! Mark

 

[hesham]

From JAWA 1969.

 

[riggerrob]

Good morning my dears and my friends,

here is a Kaman modification to OH-6A to be fan-in-fuselage;

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a005049.pdf

That looks like an early iteration of the "Quiet One" Stealth helicopter (1972) and MD 500 NOTAR. Early in the "Quiet One" program, they concluded that tail rotors are more noisy than many other components. Hughes solved that problem by doubling the number of tail rotor blades, but off-set them less than 90 degrees. This became the production configuration on AH-64 anti-tank helicopters.

In 1981, Hughes - now McDonnell-Douglas Helicopters re-started research on quieter tail rotors. They added blown boundary air along the entire length of the tail boom (Coanada Effect) to improve yaw stability. The first batch of MD NOTARS were basically stock MD500s from firewall forward. NOTAR are amongst the quietest of production helicopters.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Kaman Air Vehicles secures contract to upgrade USMC K-MAX air vehicles

Kaman division Kaman Air Vehicles has secured a contract from the US Navy to upgrade two K-MAX rugged low-maintenance aircraft.

www.naval-technology.com

Kaman wins ‘multiple orders’ for autonomous K-Max kits

Kaman has received multiple firm orders for autonomous K-Max Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) kits from Helicopter Express and Swanson Group Aviation.

www.flightglobal.com

 

[hesham]

From Aviation Week 1965,

you feel that Model of Kaman UH-2 was different ?.

 

[riggerrob]

Charles Kaman was an avid amateur guitar player from an early age. In 1964, he assembled a team of aerospace engineers who were also guitarists and wood-workers to develop the line of "Ovation" acoustic guitars and mandolins. Ovation guitars have distinctive, rounded, composite bodies.

 

[robunos]

Charles Kaman was an avid amateur guitar player from an early age. In 1964, he assembled a team of aerospace engineers who were also guitarists and wood-workers to develop the line of "Ovation" acoustic guitars and mandolins. Ovation guitars have distinctive, rounded, composite bodies.

Wow ! I never knew that . . . way cool . . .

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Richard N]

Ovation Guitar Company - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Charles Kaman put a team of employees to work to invent a new guitar in 1964.[7][16] For the project, Kaman chose a small team of aerospace engineers and technicians, several of whom were woodworking hobbyists as well. One of these was Charles McDonough, who created the Ovation Adamas model.[history 1] Kaman founded Ovation Instruments, and in 1965 its engineers and luthiers (guitar makers) worked to improve acoustic guitars by changing their conventional materials. The R&D team spent months building and testing prototype instruments. Their first prototype had a conventional "dreadnought" body, with parallel front and back perpendicular to the sides. The innovation was the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties. Unfortunately, the seam joining the sides to the thin back was prone to breakage. To avoid the problem of a structurally unstable seam, the engineers proposed a synthetic back with a parabolic shape. By mid-1966, according to Ovation, they realized that the parabolic shape produced a desirable tone with greater volume than the conventional dreadnought.[17]

Once the engineers had settled on a parabolic shape, they turned their attention to developing a substance that could be molded into this bowl-like shape. Using their knowledge of high-tech aerospace composites, they developed Lyrachord, a patented material comprising interwoven layers of glass filament and bonding resin."

 

[hesham]

The Kaman Robot Helicopter.

Naval Aviation News

books.google.com.eg

 

[isayyo2]

I believed that evolved into the QH-43 drone on the USS Wright?

If those three stations were to be destroyed, or communications with them lost, the Wright could deploy an unmanned QH-43 Huskie helicopter, a unique version of the Kaman design that could lift a super very-low-frequency antenna over two miles into the air and thereby communicate with Navy submarines around the globe. In all, there was space on the deck for three helicopters to be embarked.

There Were Doomsday Ships Ready To Ride Out Nuclear Armageddon Before There Were Doomsday Planes

Had nuclear war broken out, three different presidents could have sought refuge aboard the Navy’s unique ‘Floating White Houses.’

www.thedrive.com

 

[Bazinga]

From Aviation Week 1965,

you feel that Model of Kaman UH-2 was different ?.

 

[Bazinga]

...how about some Kaman prototypes and projects?

Here are a few, probably nothing new, mostly from the Kaman pages at www.aviastar.org. All have photos or sketches there as well.

--Kaman K-125 (1947) - Experimental prototype that proved the intermeshing twin-rotor design (one built)
--Kaman K-16B (1962) - Grumman JRF "Goose"-based VTOL amphibious convertiplane project (one built, not flown)
--Kaman K-17 (1958) - Experimental single-rotor design with cold-jet propulsion (one built)
--Kaman K-1125 "Huskie III" (1962) - Prototype enlarged, twin-turbine development of popular H-43 Huskie proposed for both civilian and military uses (one built)
--Kaman YUH-2 (1962) - Experimental compound helicopter conversion of Seasprite with added turbojet, reached 223 mph (one built)
--Kaman H-2 "Tomahawk" (1963) - Straightforward gunship conversion of successful U.S. Navy SH-2 "Seasprite" twin-turbine, single-rotor anti-submarine helicopter with four machine guns in unique dual chin turrets. Over 200 ordered, but canceled in favor of Bell UH-1s. (one built)
--Kaman K-700 (1969) - Proposed USAF rescue version of K-1125, project only.
--Kaman KSA-100 (1971)- Stowable Aircrew Vehicle Escape Rotorseat (SAVER), a jet-powered gyroplane ejection seat to allow a pilot to fly himself back to safety (one built)

For something completely different, attached is an intriguing tidbit from FLIGHT (20 January 1956) mentioning of a Kaman annular wing project funded by the USN ONR.

I would be very surprised if Kaman has never proposed an armed variant of the K-1200 "K-MAX" aerial crane. I can't believe that I am the only one to think that its narrow, single-seat fuselage and whopping 5,000 lb external payload capacity would make a fantastic "missile truck," perhaps working with other, lighter helicopters as target designators?

I am sure there are lots more Kaman protoypes and projects to share...let's see 'em!