Don't see one of these every day

[pilottj]

Suprised this rotor design wasn't seen more often. As far as I have heard the HH-43's young sibling, the K-Max is quite a fine workhorse

 

[Lionheart]

Man, that is one scary looking ride! Did you see the second one start to wobble momentarily as the blades were spooling up? Watch the pilots helmet.



Bill

 

[Willy]

When I was on my last Med cruise in the Navy we had a visit from the Russian Navy and they landed a helo on our deck that had a similar rotor set up.

 

[Piglet]

Technically the Russkie KA-25/32 have co-axial rotors. Two counter rotating rotors on one shaft, one above the other.

 

[Ferry_vO]

Rather peculiar looking birds, but the K-max is quite the workhorse! It can lift more than it's own empty weight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX

But of course like most designs it was done before: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_Fl_282

 

[Dain Arns]

"Pedro" was designed strictly as a fire fighting/rescue helicopter.
The crews were very fond of them:
http://users.acninc.net/padipaul/Pedronews/home.htm

EDIT: Love the classic helicopter sound of those, great find on the videos!

Last one I saw operating in person, was fighting fires in Idaho in 89.
It was very stable in flight and lifted a lot of water.
They were using a Bambi Bucket on that one.

I had a Testors scale model kit of one, as a kid. One of my favorites.