What is the upper limit for heavy-lift helicopters?

[Jonathan Bailey]

How much weight can the world's most potent H/L helicopter hoist?

 

Can a heli possibly be built with enough muscle to even lift a diesel train locomotive weighing from 250 to 300 tons?

 

If a new breed of SUPER heavy-lift choppers were invented, this would be a boon for heavy recovery operations as semi truck wrecks and freight train derailments in the mountains.

 

It is all about scaling everything up. If man can build outrageous-sized ships which can sail the seas, outrageous-sized airplanes which carry a number of army tanks, and outrageous-sized rockets which jet man to the moon, man can build outrageous-sized utility aircraft as well.

 

Large airships are sometimes even used for heavy logging in the mountains. I have seen some of the lifting potential of flying machines fashioned by man.

 

Here is a scene in my train simulator where a Super Puma heli is lifting a derailed grain hopper back up the embankment. A cute Hollywood touch though probably a bit fantastic.The RR sim is Trainz in the mode where the virtual train layout is built called Surveyor. All those arrows, circles, dots and lines and things are various builder's tools and will not show up during actual game play.

 

[Eric Hunt]

The downwash from a machine lifting 200 tons would create more damage than you are trying to repair. Probably blow your train further down the hill, blow all the rescue people away, dust, dirt, trees blown over...

[Flying Pig]

Recovery ops also have budgets.

[Wally]

How much weight can the world's most potent H/L helicopter hoist?

 

Can a heli possibly be built with enough muscle to even lift a diesel train locomotive weighing from 250 to 300 tons?

 

If a new breed of SUPER heavy-lift choppers were invented, this would be a boon for heavy recovery operations as semi truck wrecks and freight train derailments in the mountains.

 

It is all about scaling everything up. If man can build outrageous-sized ships which can sail the seas, outrageous-sized airplanes which carry a number of army tanks, and outrageous-sized rockets which jet man to the moon, man can build outrageous-sized utility aircraft as well.

 

Large airships are sometimes even used for heavy logging in the mountains. I have seen some of the lifting potential of flying machines fashioned by man.

 

Here is a scene in my train simulator where a Super Puma heli is lifting a derailed grain hopper back up the embankment. A cute Hollywood touch though probably a bit fantastic.The RR sim is Trainz in the mode where the virtual train layout is built called Surveyor. All those arrows, circles, dots and lines and things are various builder's tools and will not show up during actual game play.

 

 

I think gear design (for transmissions) and materials to build them, are significant challenge at present against building anything with that lift capability. Not to mention the economics of committing high-tech resources to do a job that is already being done with existing equipment. How many Mi-10s work regularly now? Doesn't really indicate a need...

 

P.S. You'd need between 6 and 10 Super Pumas to lift the average rail car, if Google is anywhere near accurate.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Wally

[Jonathan Bailey]

The downwash from a machine lifting 200 tons would create more damage than you are trying to repair. Probably blow your train further down the hill, blow all the rescue people away, dust, dirt, trees blown over...

Probably some kind of super-big hovering aircraft with jet thrust like a Marine Harrier. Well, train wrecks are probably just cut up into small, lighter pieces on site with torches where normal utility helicopters can lift the workable pieces away.

 

Train wrecks and semi trucks over mountain embankments should be thoroughly cleaned up for environmental reasons. Of course, if the government wants to spend your tax dollars on helicopters to do the job....

[Hobie]

Dude, we talked about this before. Blimps are the answer. Lockheed, already had a heavy lift derigeable they are pitching right now. You are ahead of your time. Check out the blimp forums for the real players here. Helicopters are not it. Cheers. See ya.

[BCBOATER]

Lets say in theory such a helicopter could be built.

Who would buy them?

Insurance?

Fuel burn?

All these huge costs and loan payments, and the thing would probably fly very limited hours as so few could afford the outrageous hourly cost.....further driving up the cost per hour because it would sit waiting for a job so much.

Just to get it to a site for a lift would be outrageous as they would be rare, so spread far apart and have to travel long distances to get there and back.

 

How much the purchase price would be no one knows, as its not been built. But is it just 300 million dollars, or closer to double or triple that.

What is the fu burn??? 2000 gallons per hour or more?

What is a years insurance? Is it 25 million or???

[Eric Hunt]

 

 

Probably some kind of super-big hovering aircraft with jet thrust like a Marine Harrier.

Even worse. Better to move a large amount of air at a slower speed than a small amount at a ridiculous speed.

 

But you seem to be getting your rocks off with a train simulator, best stick with that one.

[eagle5]

He's ba ack!

[Jasper]

A helicopter that would lift a locomotive would be profoundly expensive and use way too much fuel.

It appears that back in the 1960s the world lost interest in creating a helicopter that could lift something much heavier than the existing large helicopters could lift.

[iChris]

How much weight can the world's most potent H/L helicopter hoist?

 

Can a heli possibly be built with enough muscle to even lift a diesel train locomotive weighing from 250 to 300 tons?

 

If a new breed of SUPER heavy-lift choppers were invented, this would be a boon for heavy recovery operations as semi truck wrecks and freight train derailments in the mountains.

 

It is all about scaling everything up. If man can build outrageous-sized ships which can sail the seas, outrageous-sized airplanes which carry a number of army tanks, and outrageous-sized rockets which jet man to the moon, man can build outrageous-sized utility aircraft as well.

 

 

One of the larges helicopters built, the Russian V-12, had a maximum payload of 88,000 pounds (44 tons). The V-12 flew; however, it never went into full production. The Russians still lead the field with their, currently active, Mi-26 with a maximum payload of 44,090 pounds (22 tons).

 

If you’re looking for extreme lifting capacity from a helicopter in the range of 250 tons, 500,000 Lbs., you’re looking at the wrong tool for that type of job. The hovering helicopter must obey the basic laws of physics. In this case, Newton’s action-reaction that states the development of a rotor thrust is equal to the force represented by the acceleration of a mass of air from a stagnant condition above the rotor to given velocity below the rotor (f = m x a). Therefore, we’re going to be looking at a mass of air as a function of gross weight and the velocity of that air as a function of disk load. We’ll see if it’s practical to designed and build such a helicopter.

 

Since the rotor is doing the bulk of the work, we’ll start there first. We’ll look at the rotor radius, disk load, power loading, power required to hover, and the rotor induced velocity. We’ll start by selecting a disk load, either higher or low, which in turn will define rotor diameter. The main advantages of low disk loads are low induced velocities, low power required, and low autorotative rates of descent. The key advantages of high disk loads are compact rotor size, low empty weight, low hub drag in forward, higher forward airspeed. We’ll make a few of the following calculations:

 

 

From the equations above there are some trade-offs to be made in the selection of the best disk load. We’re not worried about higher airspeeds since this is a lifting assignment. We can select a lower disk load for best hover performance; however, the trade-off is in doing so, the rotor size will increase. Let's try DL=10 for this 500,000 Lb. gross weight helicopter.

 

The results, Not Practical:

• Power Required SHP = 69,348 SHP (Larges helicopter built, the Russian V-12, had 4ea 6,500 SHP engines, we’ll need 10 each)

• Rotor Radius ft. = 126.16 ft. (252 ft. Diameter) Extreme radius, the the tail boom would have to be longer to achieve clearance between the main and tail rotor, and the nose would have to be longer to balance the tail boom.

• Induced Velocity ft./sec. remote wake v₂ = 91.7 ft./sec or (62.5 miles/hr. rotor wash)

• Rotor RPM = 54.5 for a BTS of 720 ft./sec

 

So, let's try a higher DL and get that rotor radius down to a workable 50 ft. for this 500,000 Lb. gross weight helicopter.

 

• The results, Still Not Practical:

• Disk Load Lbs./ft² = 63.66 (Getting the radius down drove the DL to an extreme)

• Power Required SHP = 174,971 SHP (larges helicopter built, the Russian V-12, had 4ea 6,500 SHP engines, we now need 26 each)

 

• Induced Velocity ft./sec. remote wake v₂ = 231.3 ft./sec or (157 miles/hr. rotor wash)

 

• Rotor Radius ft. = 50 ft.

 

• Rotor RPM = 137.5 for a BTS of 720 ft./sec

 

The figure below shows practical values of disk load and power loading used currently:

 

-click figure to enlarge-

 

Edited December 5, 2015 by iChris

[iChris]

It is all about scaling everything up. If man can build outrageous-sized ships which can sail the seas, outrageous-sized airplanes which carry a number of army tanks, and outrageous-sized rockets which jet man to the moon, man can build outrageous-sized utility aircraft as well.

 

 

On your scaling technique statement, take note to the famous “square-cube law”. When you scale a structure up linearly, it's area scales as a square, and its volume (and thus weight) scales as a cube. In other words, things get heavier faster than they get bigger. Complex system doesn’t always follow the law exactly but the law stands as a good first approximation.

 

https://youtu.be/i4v55oI4zDc

 

Exceptions to the Square-Cube law

https://youtu.be/qzq710aOHjE

Edited December 4, 2015 by iChris

[whoknows idont]

http://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/18959-is-this-possible-in-a-helicopter/

[iChris]

http://helicopterforum.verticalreference.com/topic/18959-is-this-possible-in-a-helicopter/

 

Also see:

 

Chuck Aarons BO-105 HELP - Topic Started by offthedirt , Feb 12 2015