Sikorsky Aircraft
2 types ยท 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
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Aircraft Types
Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw
The Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw, company designation S-58, is an American piston-engined military helicopter developed from the smaller S-55 (H-19 Chickasaw) and first flown on 8 March 1954. Designed for the U.S. Navy as the HSS-1 Seabat anti-submarine helicopter, it served the Marine Corps as the HUS-1 Seahorse transport, the Army as the Choctaw, and the Coast Guard and Air Force in rescue and VIP roles, carrying Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy among others. Sikorsky built 1,821 of them before its production ended in January 1970; Sud-Aviation licence production in France and Westland's turbine-powered Wessex development in Britain brought the combined total to 2,340. Marine UH-34Ds went to South Vietnam with Operation Shufly in 1962, and the H-34 was the last piston-engined helicopter operated by the Marine Corps.
Sikorsky S-61
Twin-turbine anti-submarine helicopter family designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft under the company designation S-61, spanning the U.S. Navy's SH-3 Sea King (originally HSS-2), the presidential VH-3s, the civil S-61L and S-61N airliners, and license-built Sea Kings from Westland in the United Kingdom, Agusta in Italy and Mitsubishi in Japan, plus Canadian assembly from Sikorsky kits. First flown in 1959, it combined submarine detection and attack in one aircraft, recovered Mercury, Gemini and Apollo crews after splashdown, carried U.S. presidents, and remains in service in several countries more than six decades later.