In the movie Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kilgore’s Huey actually lifts a patrol boat a short distance (from one part of the river to another if my memory is correct). This seems like an amazing feat to me and has given rise to a couple of questions:
Is this even possible? It’s do-able for a movie, obviously, but were Huey’s of the time able to lift things as heavy as boats significant distances?
If lifting was common, what was the upper limit - i.e, could they lift and move things as large as tanks?
I’ve googled my heart out and had a look at some military history books I have at home but can’t seem to find anything. I did see one website (forget what it is now) that quoted 6 tonnes as the lift capability for a Huey, but this seems way too small…?
In July 1967 the arrival at Long Binh of the 45th Medical Com-pany (Air Ambulance), equipped with new, powerful UH-1H’s marked the end to the Huey’s propulsion problem. Headquarters, I Field Force, Vietnam, soon conducted a test of the engine power of the UH-1D, the Kaman HH-43 “Husky,” and the new UH-1H with an Avco Corporation T-53-L-13 engine. The study showed that the maximum load of an aircraft hovering more than about twenty feet above the ground (out of ground effect) on a normal 95º F. day in the western Highlands was 184 pounds for the UH-1D with an L-11 engine, 380 pounds for the Husky, and 1,063 pounds for the UH-1H with an L-13 engine.
Fully loaded weight includes fuel and crew. Granted, the air is going to be denser at sea-level than it is in the Highlands, but not THAT much. The lift in the movie was just that: a MOVIE lift.
While you are waiting for someone with actual military expertise to reply, I’ll just mention a couple of things that I recall about helicopter lift capabilities:
The six-ton underslung load figure for a single-engine Huey sounds a bit high; I believe it’s more like 3 tons (6000 lbs); IIRC from my oilfield days, a Bell 212 (twin-engine Huey variant) could lift about 4 tons underslung. I once worked with a rig than could be broken down into components small enough to be lifted by a 212; the heaviest parts are the diesel engines and fluid pumps, which are smaller than on a conventional rig but still pretty hefty objects.
Again IIRC, the patrol boat used in Apocalypse Now had a plastic hull (this is mentioned in the dialogue), and thus was considerably lighter than an equivalent steel-hulled vessel. Come to think of it, I’ve been wanting to check into the history of those boats myself; if I find a weight figure I’ll try to remember to post it.
I have in my collection a photo of an Aerospatiale Puma (considered a medium-lift type) transporting one of my employer’s laboratory cabins, with dimensions 8 x 8 x 20 feet and weighing about 9,000 lbs all-up, so the boat lift doesn’t seem entirely unrealistic to me.
Ah, I see someone already has commented. Their figures are no doubt more reliable. Now that I think about it, the lab unit I mentioned was more like 6-7,000 lbs. Sorry, it was more than ten years ago.
There were several helicopters of that era that could probably do that. But these were generally designed specifically for cargo-carrying, rather than military patrol helicopters. The largest lifting helicopters were generally used in industrial & construction uses, rather than military work.
According to this site, the Huey was designed as a fast & quick gunship, with capacity to carry a limited number (up to 13) of troops. Say 13 troops + equipment = 2 crew averaging 250 pounds each is just under 4000 pounds. So it would be very unlikely to have been able to actually lift and carry a boat.
But any of these helicopters could probably have done that, easily:
The Sikorsky CH-54A ‘Skycrane’, various models from 1948-present, lift capacity 20,000 pounds. see here
The Sikorsky S64, vintage c. 1966, lift capacity up to 25,000 pounds.
or
The Soviet Mil 26, lift capacity 18-32 tons (40,000-70,000 pounds). see here
OK, found the boat represented in the movie: Patrol Boat River, Mark II. Hoisting weight is listed as 16,000 lbs., so well outside the capcity of a Huey. Doable, however, by the heli types mentioned by t-bonham, as well as by Chinooks, one would think.
Wowsers that’s a lot of lifting! I had suspicions that the scene in the movie migh have been innacurate, but I had no idea just how grossly innacurate it was!
Thanks for all the responses guys; I’ve just realised that one of those big Russky ones did some bridge-work just down the road from me here in New Zealand.
