Towing Barges over Snow

It is a Columbia Helicopters Boeing Vertol flown by Myron Lamont experimenting to see if it would be feasible to tow 60 ton barges across the ice in the arctic.. I believe it was tried in 1975 or 1976..

Ed..
echernen@kc.rr.com

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Good Afternoon,

Many years ago, while working in the Arctic, I had the pleasure of being teamed-up with a pilot who performed this type of flying with regular barges (not hover barges), using an H-21. It was the only way to move them around in shallow water. I remember him mentioning that it was very uncomfortable as he was suspended by the shoulder harness/seat belt for extended periods. The referenced photo shows the steady state condition as they where pulling the barge. He also mentioned he had a cable failure once; things got exciting real quick but the aircraft was not "bent".

Francois.
magnan3@total.net

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Columbia Helicopters gave the posters away at HAI in Anaheim a couple of years ago. It's a Vertol 107 II and there was a paper accompanying the poster that explained the proximity ot the blades to the ice pack appears to be closer because of the camera lens used. After two years on my shop wall, I'm still impressed every time I look at it.

duggie@my-deja.com

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FWIW, when I flew the CH-113/A (a SAR CH-46) Labrador for the Canadian Air Force, a few of our birds had an inclinometer mounted on the side of the cockpit at about a 45 degree angle forward. I asked about its purpose of one of our "Venerated Old Ones" and he showed me the subject picture of an H-46 doing a high tension nose stand. Apparently, the Canadian Air Force had done some work pulling barges as well. Apparently, the photo does have a degree of optical illusion, because they were "only" skewed forward about 45 degrees (as if that weren't enough). I too was told the story about the rocket-like effect of pulling on the cargo hook release....

The good ol' days.

Rob Erdos
erdos@mail.intranet.ca

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