The Helicopter Museum.

Press Release 18th February 2009

West’s Largest Helicopter represented in
World’s Biggest Helicopter Museum

The Helicopter Museum in the UK has taken delivery of parts recovered from the Boeing XCH-62 Heavy Lift Helicopter (HLH), cancelled as a project in 1975 and eventually scrapped at Fort Rucker in Alabama in October 2005. The sole prototype had been in either open storage or on open air display for most of the 30 years prior to its demise and had deteriorated badly over that period.

Designed to carry external loads of up to 20,000 kg (20 tons) around the battlefield, the HLH featured a 27 m (89 ft) long fuselage with tandem rotors each spanning some 28 m (92 ft), and stood around 12 m (38 ft) high on a stalky undercarriage. It was never completed to flying stage and lacked a number of essential parts, but nevertheless dominated the outdoor collection at the US Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker for almost 20 years.

Plans to move it in the autumn of 2005 had to be abandoned due to the cost and the level of corrosion but, hearing of its likely fate, Helicopter Museum Chairman Elfan Ap Rees moved quickly to try and save the huge helicopter and, with the help of the US Army Aviation Museum director Steve Maxham, managed to salvage some key components including the 5.5 m (18 ft) long main landing gear and nose wheels for display in the UK museum. Bureaucracy, because the parts were deemed as military components, then delayed shipment before eventual delivery to the museum at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset three years after the helicopter was scrapped.

Shipment of the parts was organised and sponsored jointly by manufacturer Boeing and Columbia Helicopters, civil operators of the BV234 Chinook, with support from the UK Museum, Libraries & Archive Council PRISM fund and Helicopter INTERNATIONAL and HeliData News publisher Avia Press Associates.

The landing gear will now go on display alongside a much smaller XCH-62 predecessor, the Piasecki HUP, to give visitors a scale to relate to the dimensions of the HLH, the largest helicopter yet built by a Western aerospace manufacturer and the world’s biggest tandem rotor aircraft.

The Helicopter Museum is open throughout the year on Wednesdays – Sundays and holds an international collection of rotorcraft, including many rare and unique examples listed on the National Aviation Heritage Register.