The People Behind the H-46
The Sea Knight would never have existed if it weren't for helicopter pioneer Frank Nicholas Piasecki, the man in a hurry. Piasecki's quest to build helicopters started in 1940, fully three decades after Igor Sikorsky's. Piasecki also thought big. Before Igor Sikorsky ever built a large helicopter, Frank-then just twenty-seven years old-delivered his first "Flying Banana" to the US Navy.
The date was September 12, 1947, and the machine was the Piasecki HRP-1 Rescuer. Where Sikorsky's helicopters could rescue just one man, Piasecki's could retrieve ten at one time. As the first man to manufacture large helicopters, it was Frank Piasecki who showed the world what they could do.
In May 1949, eight fabric-covered HRP-1s of pioneering Marine helicopter squadron HMX-1 put on a demonstration at Quantico, Virginia, that would forever alter military tactics. Before President Truman, members of his cabinet, and high-ranking officials, HMX-1's eight HRP-1s transported 42 fully equipped troops, weapons, and supplies from a simulated aircraft carrier deck to a mock landing zone before observation stands. Protected by fighter planes, the dark-blue HRP-1s deposited their loads and were back in the air within seconds, heading back to the "carrier" for additional loads.
Too many lives had been lost during Allied landings in World War II for this novel manner of bypassing traditional beach defenses to go unappreciated. Thus was born the USMC concept of vertical envelopment, upon which the Army would later base its similar doctrine of airmobility.
Piasecki went on to builtd the HUP for the Navy and the H-21 for the Air Force and Army. Good as these helicopters were, though, they were limited by the performance and reliability of their piston engines. In 1955, he left Piasecki Aircraft, which changed its name to Vertol the following year. It was then that work started on the Model 107.
Tom Peppler, Vertol's chief design engineer, headed a development team that included Dick Degan (project engineer), Tom Griffith (design), Joe Mallen (aerodynamics), Rens Swan (weights), and Ken Grina (structures). Every one of these veterans ranks among the finest rotary-wing engineers the United States has ever produced. Mallen would later be president of Boeing Vertol.
Vertol chief executive Don Berlin-who earlier in his career had designed the Curtiss P-40 fighter plane then-believed so deeply in the Model 107 that he gambled a million dollars on building a company-funded prototype. This decision displayed courage and foresight.
Boeing acquired Vertol in 1960 on the recommendation of Seattle veterans George Schairer, Ed Wells, and George Martin. This acquisition provided funding and manufacturing expertise critical to the Models 107 and 114 in service as the H-46 Sea Knight and H-47 Chinook. Production of these two helicopters peaked in the early 1970s, when Boeing Vertol turned out 30 large helicopters a month for use in Vietnam.
Renamed Boeing Helicopters in 1988, and again Boeing, Philadelphia in 1997, the Philadelphia division today is partnered with Sikorsky in production of the Army's stealthy RAH-66 Comanche, and with Bell to build the MV-22 Osprey for the Marine Corps and a CV-22 variant for the Special Operations Command.