Photo: Cessna
Let's be honest. It doesn't generally go very well when a fixed-wing aircraft manufacturer tries to build a helicopter. Just look at the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne if you don't believe us. Never before had so much money been spent building a helicopter, only for it to not even go into production. But the Cheyenne is just one example of an airplane company striking out on building a helicopter. There are indeed others out there that gave it the old college try and failed. This is the story of the CH-1 Skyhook, Cessna's first and only helicopter.
When most people think of Cessna, they think of bare-basic single and twin-engine private airplanes that retirees like to fly from golf course to sweaty golf course. There's good reason for this; these types of sales have been Cessna's bread and butter for the last eight decades. But in the exciting and transformative boom post World War II, Cessna, like the American soldiers returning from combat, decided to do something ambitious. Because unbeknownst to most av-geeks today, Cessna wasn't alone in building flying machines in the little city of Wichita, Kansas, in the late 1940s.
Sharing space in the same city as Cessna in those days was a tiny helicopter manufacturing company run by a man called Charles Seibel. Through his eponymously-named helicopter development firm, the former engineer at Boeing and then Bell Helicopter catered to the low-end enthusiast light helicopter market while even getting some attention from the U.S. Army with his designs. Seibel's most notable design, the S-4, was as bare-bones and basic as a twin-rotor light helicopter could be in the late 1940s.
With a bizarre front window arrangement that looks like a mount for stained cathedral glass instead of a helicopter cockpit, every little kilo counted on this plucky four-cylinder chopper made primarily of welded tube steel. Under its U.S. Army designation, the S-4 was dubbed the YH-24 Sky Hawk, a full three years before Douglas used the same with a different inflection name for their A-4 naval strike jet. For such a basic and early American helicopter, the S-4 was remarkably well-developed. Thanks to helpful recommendations from the Army, Seibel was able to introduce the S-4B with a shortened fuselage and extended cockpit for added visibility and stability while skids replaced the S-4A's landing gear wheels.
Well, on January 14th, 1952, Cessna acquired Seibel Helicopter via a stock-swap buyout with its shareholders and all the technological know-how that came along with it. By that summer, all the machining equipment, manufacturing tools, and a great deal of Seibel's old engineers had been moved to Cessna's Wichita production facility to begin work on Cessna's first and to date-only helicopter. Before long, a quarter-sized mockup of Cessna's new design was undergoing wind tunnel testing on the campus of Wichita State University.
Inherent to the core of Cessna's new design was giving the exterior an ostensibly Cessna-like appearance in line with its single-engine, fixed-wing offerings like the 172. By moving the S-4's engine to the front of the airframe, what became known as the CH-1 almost took on a car-like front fascia with a prominent front hood and grille. With dimensions of 42 feet, 6 in (12.95 m) long and eight feet, three inches (2.51m) tall with a gross weight of just 3,100 lbs (1,406 kg) fully-loaded, the CH-1 Skyhook was a chopper that prioritized agility and lightness over raw lifting capability.
The Skyhook had an engine very much in line with this philosophy, a supercharged, air-cooled Continental FSO-470 six-cylinder engine. In pre-production, bare-bones form without an enclosed cockpit or a front engine cowling, the CH-1 made its first hover flight in July 1953. One year later, the production-grade CH-1, complete with all the bodywork and capable of carrying, made its own inaugural fight. Soon after, this bare skeleton of a prototype was flying to altitudes of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in anticipation of a large production order from the Army under the name YH-41 Seneca.
During its production run, the CH-1 Skyhook set more than one world record. In 1953, the helicopter became the first of its kind to land at the summit of Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and take off again. With Cessna test pilot Jack Zimmerman at the stick, it was a feat that, to that point, was only achieved by racing drivers in highly modified race cars. In its upgraded CH-1B configurations with a second row of seats and a more powerful 270 hp supercharged Continental FSO-526, the Skyhook logged the world record for the highest-flying helicopter with a maximum altitude of 29,777 feet (9,076 m) in September 1955. To this very day, no piston-engined helicopter has come anywhere near close to breaking this record.
On paper, it appeared like Cessna had a winning formula on its hands. A light, fast, and relatively capable twin-rotor light helicopter with lots of upsides and only a few downsides regarding stability and engine maintenance. One would think the Skyhook is the type of aerospace project the U.S. Military would practically drool over themselves thinking about. But after an initial production order for ten CH-1 airframes, it appears that the U.S. Army developed cold feet about the project. Some claim Cessna's aerodynamic stability upgrades to the CH-1B were insufficient. While others claim Cessna's decision to use Lycoming, their long-time vendor for fixed-wing aircraft engines, to supply the engine for a helicopter, while completely unproven otherwise, was the final nail in the coffin as far as the Army was concerned.
Regardless, the CH-1C variant received its federal flight certification in 1959 and was introduced as a civilian model the following year at a price of just under $80,000. But alas, the civilian market didn't bite on Cessna's only helicopter either. A later crash that resulted in the pilot's death behind the stick of a CH-1 over the skies of Texas in 1961, attributed to mechanical failure rather than pilot error, did little to help matters. In fact, this crash was nothing short of a PR disaster for Cessna. In the end, less than 50 Cessna CH-1 Skyhooks were manufactured Between July 1953 and December 1962 in all of its variants.
A further upgraded variant with its piston engine swapped for an Allison Model 250 turboshaft engine also found in the Bell 206 was even considered at the very end of production to spur interest from the Army once again, but this went nowhere along with the rest of the Skyhook program. Soon after, Cessna moved to invalidate the CH-1's type certificate denoting its airworthiness, just in case any examples they couldn't find before the end of a company buy-back program crashed before Cessna could get a hold of them.
With the conclusion of the Skyhook program in 1963, it would be the last time Cessna even spat in the direction of helicopter production for the next 60 years. But if nothing else, the Skyhook's failure proved to Cessna that their bread and butter has been and always will be small, relatively affordable private light aircraft. It's a market they've continued to dominate in perpetuity ever since the Skyhook kicked the bucket. From that point of view, the CH-1 is a reminder it's sometimes best just to stick with what you know.
But what do you all think? Was Cessna in the right to try and dominate a novel, emerging market for helicopters in the immediate aftermath of World War II? Or were they better off not even bothering in the first place and focusing on their pride and joy fixed wing airplanes? Let us know in the comments down below. Oh, and bonus points if you're a helicopter pilot and have any insights into how this old whirly bird would have flown back in its day. Those anecdotes are worth their weight in gold to us.
Sharing space in the same city as Cessna in those days was a tiny helicopter manufacturing company run by a man called Charles Seibel. Through his eponymously-named helicopter development firm, the former engineer at Boeing and then Bell Helicopter catered to the low-end enthusiast light helicopter market while even getting some attention from the U.S. Army with his designs. Seibel's most notable design, the S-4, was as bare-bones and basic as a twin-rotor light helicopter could be in the late 1940s.
With a bizarre front window arrangement that looks like a mount for stained cathedral glass instead of a helicopter cockpit, every little kilo counted on this plucky four-cylinder chopper made primarily of welded tube steel. Under its U.S. Army designation, the S-4 was dubbed the YH-24 Sky Hawk, a full three years before Douglas used the same with a different inflection name for their A-4 naval strike jet. For such a basic and early American helicopter, the S-4 was remarkably well-developed. Thanks to helpful recommendations from the Army, Seibel was able to introduce the S-4B with a shortened fuselage and extended cockpit for added visibility and stability while skids replaced the S-4A's landing gear wheels.
Well, on January 14th, 1952, Cessna acquired Seibel Helicopter via a stock-swap buyout with its shareholders and all the technological know-how that came along with it. By that summer, all the machining equipment, manufacturing tools, and a great deal of Seibel's old engineers had been moved to Cessna's Wichita production facility to begin work on Cessna's first and to date-only helicopter. Before long, a quarter-sized mockup of Cessna's new design was undergoing wind tunnel testing on the campus of Wichita State University.
Inherent to the core of Cessna's new design was giving the exterior an ostensibly Cessna-like appearance in line with its single-engine, fixed-wing offerings like the 172. By moving the S-4's engine to the front of the airframe, what became known as the CH-1 almost took on a car-like front fascia with a prominent front hood and grille. With dimensions of 42 feet, 6 in (12.95 m) long and eight feet, three inches (2.51m) tall with a gross weight of just 3,100 lbs (1,406 kg) fully-loaded, the CH-1 Skyhook was a chopper that prioritized agility and lightness over raw lifting capability.
The Skyhook had an engine very much in line with this philosophy, a supercharged, air-cooled Continental FSO-470 six-cylinder engine. In pre-production, bare-bones form without an enclosed cockpit or a front engine cowling, the CH-1 made its first hover flight in July 1953. One year later, the production-grade CH-1, complete with all the bodywork and capable of carrying, made its own inaugural fight. Soon after, this bare skeleton of a prototype was flying to altitudes of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in anticipation of a large production order from the Army under the name YH-41 Seneca.
During its production run, the CH-1 Skyhook set more than one world record. In 1953, the helicopter became the first of its kind to land at the summit of Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and take off again. With Cessna test pilot Jack Zimmerman at the stick, it was a feat that, to that point, was only achieved by racing drivers in highly modified race cars. In its upgraded CH-1B configurations with a second row of seats and a more powerful 270 hp supercharged Continental FSO-526, the Skyhook logged the world record for the highest-flying helicopter with a maximum altitude of 29,777 feet (9,076 m) in September 1955. To this very day, no piston-engined helicopter has come anywhere near close to breaking this record.
On paper, it appeared like Cessna had a winning formula on its hands. A light, fast, and relatively capable twin-rotor light helicopter with lots of upsides and only a few downsides regarding stability and engine maintenance. One would think the Skyhook is the type of aerospace project the U.S. Military would practically drool over themselves thinking about. But after an initial production order for ten CH-1 airframes, it appears that the U.S. Army developed cold feet about the project. Some claim Cessna's aerodynamic stability upgrades to the CH-1B were insufficient. While others claim Cessna's decision to use Lycoming, their long-time vendor for fixed-wing aircraft engines, to supply the engine for a helicopter, while completely unproven otherwise, was the final nail in the coffin as far as the Army was concerned.
Regardless, the CH-1C variant received its federal flight certification in 1959 and was introduced as a civilian model the following year at a price of just under $80,000. But alas, the civilian market didn't bite on Cessna's only helicopter either. A later crash that resulted in the pilot's death behind the stick of a CH-1 over the skies of Texas in 1961, attributed to mechanical failure rather than pilot error, did little to help matters. In fact, this crash was nothing short of a PR disaster for Cessna. In the end, less than 50 Cessna CH-1 Skyhooks were manufactured Between July 1953 and December 1962 in all of its variants.
A further upgraded variant with its piston engine swapped for an Allison Model 250 turboshaft engine also found in the Bell 206 was even considered at the very end of production to spur interest from the Army once again, but this went nowhere along with the rest of the Skyhook program. Soon after, Cessna moved to invalidate the CH-1's type certificate denoting its airworthiness, just in case any examples they couldn't find before the end of a company buy-back program crashed before Cessna could get a hold of them.
With the conclusion of the Skyhook program in 1963, it would be the last time Cessna even spat in the direction of helicopter production for the next 60 years. But if nothing else, the Skyhook's failure proved to Cessna that their bread and butter has been and always will be small, relatively affordable private light aircraft. It's a market they've continued to dominate in perpetuity ever since the Skyhook kicked the bucket. From that point of view, the CH-1 is a reminder it's sometimes best just to stick with what you know.
But what do you all think? Was Cessna in the right to try and dominate a novel, emerging market for helicopters in the immediate aftermath of World War II? Or were they better off not even bothering in the first place and focusing on their pride and joy fixed wing airplanes? Let us know in the comments down below. Oh, and bonus points if you're a helicopter pilot and have any insights into how this old whirly bird would have flown back in its day. Those anecdotes are worth their weight in gold to us.
Google News