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  • Everything that has to do with helicopters should be taken more seriously

  • Menuda chatarra voladora y menuda masacre ha hecho en 5min..

  • You know, what they could've done to make this thing better was to just make it from scratch instead of use spare parts from other aircraft.

  • I'm glad my $40 million tax dollars was wasted this way. Oh no the humanity LOL!!!

  • American engineering for ya... xD

  • Oh no the humanity! lol

  • Obviously, this wasn't designed for military use. This was just an attempt to clear logs faster. But the way these helicopters were positioned and attached was obviously not something I was happy with.

  • My brother and dad was there when that happened.

  • Nigga technology.

  • Epic Fail.

  • Nextime, on Backyard Builds...

  • The problem was the frame. With a completely redesigned (and actually ENGINEERED framework) this thing could have raked in millions.

  • It was designed with stupid in mind.

  • Freak Disaster? WTF who though this was going to work? did a 4th grader design this? my cat could design better aircraft.

  • An interesting idea, shame it failed. I would have loved to see this opperational and flying, thenagain I'm a sucker for odd aircraft.

  • A guy was fucking killed for this bullshit; I hope his family sued the shit out of the inventor.

  • lol this is the dumbest shit

  • thats the dumbest shit i have ever seen... even a total retard could have told you that piece of shit wasnt save.

  • @TheAmazingAtheist They got a "blessing" from god. What a blessing.

  • NEGRO NOODLE.

  • A moth-eaten old airship that they couldn't give away, 4 helicopters from a scrap heap and some scaffolding tubes?

    Yes, of course it was worth, $100,000,000 Mr. Insurance assessor, would you like another drink?

  • That's not a freak disaster, that's bad engineering.

  • fail

  • should have duct taped the helicopters on instead

  • 40 fucking million for a ballon and some aluminum welded together with helicopters that were to be junked?

  • @JISINSANE3 Yeah, something I don't get myself. You hear about things made from cheap material that only cost a few bucks to make yet its worth 100x what it cost to make it. Like awesome sports cars that are worth more then what the cost materials and engineers are to the power of 10. Everyone's just out to make money without concern for others.

  • Wow. I 'totally' didn't expect that to happen.

  • "unanticipated vibrations"

    yeah... right...

  • Geezus. I could design a better light than air, aircraft than that. Seriously...how the hell did they get permission to fly that?!

  • Redneck science

  • Unforeseen vibration? Seems like if 40 million is put into the project they would at least know to put plenty of rubber bushings in between joints in the frame.

  • Americans: experts on spending fckloads of taxpayers money on nothing while families are starving.

  • i lol'd

  • Natural selection.

  • How could the vibration be 'unanticipated'? wow. Waste, fraud and abuse much?

  • The British Hybrid Air Vehicle's blimps aren't like normal blimps, they're better than anything America has.

  • Who the hell thought it was a good idea to do this, im drunk atm and this seems like a bad idea....

  • I'm no expert but I would have thought having the stress of 4 helicopters attached by some quite flimsy looking steel tubing would be a accident waiting to happen..

    Just the look of the thing screams corner-cutting, can't believe they said it cost $40 million.

  • I took one look at that scrapheap + duct tape monstrosity, and thought, "Follow the money."

  • You win again resonance frequency!

  • Ok so the frame wasent strong enough so what? It's a neat idea maybe you could make it work I don't think it is a good idea but it's not something to write a congressman about it's logical hell they have large helocopters that could do this things job far better and you could get more of them with this things price blimps are ok for spacific tasks but not for these things still a nice idea that could go into other projects.

  • @JONSKATEVIDS they have it's called a Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle look it up

  • if any of you actually believe the US would buy any kind of blimp for military purposes, you are retarded and need to be institutionalized.

  • AmazingAthiest

  • hey we can carry 26 tons!, nope chuck testa

  • what you get for stealing |German patents after WW2 america.  so dumb.

  • Zeppelins are the future of air travel

  • and this is why you shouldn't always go with the lowest bidder

  • That looks like something that a redneck with no engineering skills would come up with. Four helicopters? I'm surprised it worked that long as those helicopters look like a balancing nightmare to me. What if one of those stops working?

    It looked as if the helicopters were connected to the blip by a steal pipes picked out of garbage container. Obviously, if they used a durable frame, it would most likely be too heavy to leave the ground.

    Was this thing even certified for the flight?

  • pff, it's the french & the germans that made the most of airships.

  • What the fuck were they thinking?...

  • HA-HA!

  • Maybe they should have hired an engineer to help with this project.

  • The design for this thing was flawed, (obviously) but the concept is sound.

    From the look of it, they went full scale prior to any real testing. Adding to the fact that most of the hardware appeared to be at least 30 years from anywhere close to airworthy didn't help matters. Assisted lift vehicles could be useful in some circumstances, Heavy lift and logging spring to mind. But, this abomination looks like a shop class project.

    It's Stupid like this that's holding us back as a species.

  • this was some kind of niggerrigged prototype or some shit; I've seen the new helicopter blimp designs and they are sound. If the military wants one of these I can under stand why they would be useful, assuming you had secure airspace you could take one of these things and under a day have a finished forward command center.

  • everyone's voices around there must have been pretty high... probably not..

  • How would it be possible to die in this accident? The blimp hit the ground at like 4mph

  • This is what happens when government tries to invent things

  • @simontimon2 I'm laughing at your existence right now. quite possibly the dumbest comment I've read on the internet in years.

  • @ManIn0rbit So Only the fool, incapable of logical arguments uses vulgarity to end arguments.

  • @simontimon2 Well, he was maybe harsh but your statement is truly out there.

    A comparison:

    It's like when i buy a new sweet car, and while driving it around the block, the engine catches fire and blows in my face. Because of that event i wrap my sweet new car around a nice tree.

    A bystander sees that and says to himself:"Yup, that happened when people try to build them cars(meaning me in the burning car)" You get it? Makes no sense. Funny stupid, i was amused to.

  • @simontimon2 Hahahahahaha. <---me still laughing at you.

  • Looks like some of us have University grade education, and some of us don't.

  • Oh,no(*_*)

  • wtf lol my last name is piasecki rofl

  • Whose dumb idea was this???

  • if someone pitched this idea to me I would of told them they were retarded

  • Who in their right mind would design such a contraption that looks like it already was crashed a few times before it ever took test flight on this video. It's like a really bad dream that someone had, who decided to continue drinking on the job instead of going to their AA meetings..

  • Looks lke something inspired by 'Last of the summer wine'

  • The whole thing looked like an accident waiting to happen.

  • This thing fits the saying, if it looks ugly, it probably flies ugly. The cobbled together space frame has resonance written all over it. Having seen Vertols go into ground resonance (same basic configuration except you have four rotor heads instead of two) the complete failure was totally to be expected.

  • this had "shit" written all over it from the moment it was conceived.

  • Stupid looking thing it deserve to crash,, but RIP to that guy

  • Christ on a bike! I could build something better than that in my shed!

  • Comment removed

  • then just moments into the flight, the fake vid, becomes a load of crap. what a load of shit.

  • Oh the humanity!!

  • I hope you all realize that this is a spectacular failure of the designers of this horrible deathtrap, not a failure of airship technology. Strapping four giant, resonating, disaster-prone flak bombs(sorry, "helicopters") to a kludge of shrapnel is not standard for blimp manufacturers. A large blimp can carry 200-500 tons(1 million pounds) of cargo and are extremely safe ordinarily, so they are finally, deservedly, seeing use again.

  • EPIC FAIL.

  • who flies blimps theses days?

  • @iwillavengeyou

    If you live in the USA you are aware of the Goodyear Blimp's that flies over big events. They are used as advertising and media relations. There are blimp companies, manufactures. Due to the size, need for a large hanger, operating crew (ground and air), cost, they tend to be rare. There are smaller tethered "blimps" used for advertisement and free flying helium balloons for weather and atmospheric research.

    goodyearblimp com

  • @gmcjetpilot oh wow, i knew they were or advertising but i did not know they were used for weather. thx!

  • @gmcjetpilot dude it's nothing specil it's not only in the usa it's also in Belgium and a few parts of europe....

  • special* 

  • @gmcjetpilot Thanks buz killington. It was a joke.

  • @iwillavengeyou Goodyear

  • The cascade failure of heli pod mounts makes it seem like they were way under engineered. Maby a weight limit issue.

  • only in america

  • I'm sure that was 40 mil in tax dollars...

  • The blimp itself was decommisioned in the early 1962, but instead of takeing it apart they stored the material in the dome until someone would rebuild useing the envelope. It was orginally a N-class ZPG-3W Navy patrol which held a giant radar inside the main envelope allowing it to detect much further then conventional equipment, in the 60's the DEW Line and orbital craft made them less useful.

  • @candr

    Thanks for the interesting information. Appreciate the insight.

  • hey at least once the helicopters fell the zeplin kept in the air

  • It was cheaper than designing an all-new platform, I guess.

    Good old lowest-bidder contracts.

  • I can't believe they thought this would work, Its called resonance.

  • FAIL FAIL FAIL

  • Don't you think that they should have made a regular Zeppelin instead of this retarded half assed version, i mean the USS Macon could have lifted the same amount of weight if they intended it to be a cargo transporter

  • "freak disaster" ? ... it was doomed when the blueprints were made

  • Wow, honestly, someone signed off on that contraption? Doesn't all that crap hanging undreneath COMPLETELY contradict the whole principle of lighter-than-air flight?

  • bye 30 million............ stupid asses

  • i wonder how high it would of gone if it didn't deflate?

  • We want to make an RC version of this with 4 "decommissioned" Air Hog helicopters.

  • @CrabSpirits

    It has been done, not a copy of this contraption but RC helium balloon toys with lift and thrust fans. Not identical but a variation on this theme. Fine for a toy. Goodyear blimp has thrust motors on it, but all lift is by ballast and helium. The problem, a blimp has a huge drag coefficient (parasitic), never will get out of it's own way. Clearly the idea here, is one whose time will never come. It's faster to do remote logging with four separate choppers than a blimp-chopper.

  • @gmcjetpilot But I want to copy this exactly, right down to the broken shopping cart wheels. I want to embrace the scope of sheer horribleness.

  • @CrabSpirits THAT would be very, very COOL.

    It amazes me when I look at this thing. As an engineer, it does not look workable at a glance. We tend to develop the ability over time & with experience to make very good assumptions of a structures integrity. The structure supporting the helicopters does not appear to be supportable. Lots of amazing things, though, don't look right but work well anyway, that's what engineers are for, we make it work, at least on paper.

  • @ProChoiceJesus - An engineer has been defined as someone "who can do for a shilling what any fool can do for a pound".

    This machine looks like the "what any fool can do for a shilling" solution.

  • @JBofBrisbane YES! Yes, agreed whole-heartedly! The best "engineers" are usually the ones who have the talent, but have never been through school & don't have all the useless diplomas on their walls, nor the official title.

  • That was a cracking bit of crashing, top marks

  • This ridiculous craft could only come from a Liberal! I think Joy Behar, Kathy Griffin and Nancy Pelosi were the brains of this idea!!

  • at first i thought only some russian cold war engineers could put together such a roflcopter. but then i noticed it has "u.s. forest service" on the side.

  • Comment removed

  • God that was a FAIL just waiting to happen. It looks like a 3rd grader trying to build a bridge out of popsicle sticks......with 4 helicopters attached. Feel sorry for the pilot though.

  • who would come up with a ridiculous idea? not only does it look stupid who would say "Hmmm i wouldn't mind travelling that" , get a plane its cheaper and more comforatble oh and it'll get you there. Stupid

  • $40 million!? I guess a $million ain't worth much any more.

  • What a proud way to die. Aviation Blunders the only way to die.

  • I can understand the craft failing as a concept...but failing because one of the helicopters simply fell off? That is simply piss-poor engineering. Complete shame that someone had to die over it.

  • sorry but this really was a total stupid construction

  • Trying new ideas is a good thing, but insane crap like this is uncalled for - any 3rd grader could see it was a flying accident looking for a place to happen. If it wasn't for the pilot death, it would be laughable that someone dumped money into this lemon!

  • @MrSladeTheBlade

    " it would be laughable that someone dumped money into this lemon!"

    That someone would be US tax payers... Still not funny. Cheers.

  • a blimp to carry logs? yeah, wonderful idea.

  • @mikeohoh7 Yeah. So are trains. And cars. And buses. Who needs those old things?

  • The bloke who dreamt this thing up must have been on acid.

  • so tragic. i feel for the pilots, i wish the one who didnt make it rests in peace

  • Stupid. That thing is so stupid.

  • My dad worked with Frank for many years designing some really crazy stuff. He once told me the idea was to try things because they had never been tried and see what happens. They knew a lot of the stuff was destined to fail but learned practical things that helped with other designs that did work.

  • Meth...powered

  • fail

  • Hindenburg Reloaded: The revenge of Hydrogen

  • Could have done without the head banger music and the Billy Bad-Ass narrator.

  • Fail

  • this was the dumbest shit design ever they should of thrown the engineer in jail for manslaughter....well from reading your post I see chief designer offed himself...

  • Maybe they should have invested just a little bit more into the engineering staff.

  • You sure this isn't the Polish Air Force?

  • @mannhorn34 Awesome.

  • FAIL.

  • Piece of crap.Too bad pilot had to die.

  • I thought Russians is most craziest engineers in the world. I was wrong...

  • the local wildlife tragically sounded like chipmunks for weeks

  • Helium eh?  The pilots were heard yelling for help like a field mouse

  • Bad engineering.

    Look up "SkyHook JHL-40" and other similar projects... those are much better projects.

  • I onley have one thing to say OMFG

  • Comment removed

  • This ended as badly as I thought it would...

  • that observer was right it was a pile of shit

  • Does anybody know how much debris the cameraman on the left side had to have dug out of his body after this?

  • 40m and they did not look into the basics , what a joke

  • Correction to comment below;

    the hybrid in this video was supposed to lift 26 tons,NOT 22 as I mistakenly typed.

    Peace,

    -g

  • I did some research.

    The Mil V-12 lifted 44 tons in 1969,setting a record.

    The hybrid in this video never did seem to lift a payload.

    It was only supposed to lift 22 tons.

    If we had taken the initiative and built something like the delta-fuselage Mil-32,

    there's no telling where we could have gone from there.

    It fascinates me to see the machines that were built then,many surpassing even Hollywood for sheer impressiveness.

    Many triumphed.

    The men of that era did more with less,worldwide.

  • @jetpoweredgriffin

    Thanks for the data, good info. Cheers

  • thats what you get for attaching helicopters to a blimp

  • How the hell were their "unanticipated vibrations." Seems that someone with helicopter design experience would have anticipated vibrations and designed in some tolerance. What a clusterfuck. And how the hell did this thing cost $40 million.

  • Comment removed

  • Idiot ...stupid and dumb airship ever !!!!!

  • FAIL

  • I guess Piasecki deserves a severe beating then. When Messerschmidt failed with the Me210 the cheif designer committed suicide just out of shame.

    So yeah, Frank Piasecki, i'm calling you out.

    I will BEAT your "Radical designing" ass until you get it. GO back to helicopters man.

  • @peepeevagi

    Ha ha I hear you, but Frank Piasecki passed away Feb 2008. Beating a man who has been dead for over 2 years is bad form....

  • heath robinson couldn't of made this up.

  • Lololol it's 4 helis and a blimp.

    I probably would have supported the idea and made them build six or seven. And, done right, it could have served some purpose. Logging, high altitude gun battery...

  • Also, whoever designed it deserves a big punch in the face. Seriously.

  • For one thing, Frank Piasecki designed it. Maybe if he used thicker tubes made of titanium, and mounted the Sikorsky helicopters more securely (A formed ring with braces could work better), then it's likely the Helistat. The Cyclo-Crane was weirder. It crashed TWICE. Piasecki wanted to try again, but the Forest Service wasn't interested. :)

  • Deathstar?

  • Wow what a giant piece of trash

  • a 30mio dollar piece of trash

  • helium!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • why structural engineering was invented

  • What is the purpose of this?

    How would it save the FS fuel over a large copter when it has 4 god damn helicopters attached to it?

  • @flanksteak5

    The idea (a bad one but an idea) was an aircraft with much larger lifting load, faster more efficient than a single helicopter, in theory. The problem is as you say, 4 separate helicopters, 4 crew and big airship. 4 helicopter operating independently as helicopters (minus the blimp) would be more efficient.

    The logistics and maneuverability much less it's obvious lack of structural or airworthiness, makes it impractical in hindsight. Read the comments below.

  • @gmcjetpilot

    Actually, it was powered by 1 guy IIRC in the left rear copter. The other copters are slaved to his controls.

  • @CrabSpirits

    THANKS.... Do you have some reference. I believe you. It is confusing when they say ONE OF THE PILOTS was killed. I looked at Wiki and they hint that is was only one pilot total, which makes sense, one pilot operation. If there was more than one pilot, they would most likely have been killed also.

  • @geeflyboy

    I don't remember where I heard this. It was probly on network news when this happened. They interviewed someone involved in the project, and he said that the helis used collective only to control the craft and it was controlled at the rear heli. This heli had all the instruments for the 4. Details are sketchy for sure on this thing, so who knows?

  • @geeflyboy

    Probably had a co-pilot,too,

    maybe doing double duty as a flight engineer?

  • @CrabSpirits

    I know you didn't mean that but it was still funny.

    "Powered by one guy"?

    No wonder!

  • @gmcjetpilot

    Didn't the Russians have huge choppers that would do this more effectively?

    Man,that's alot of money and a waste of human life.

    So close to the Hindenburg disaster spot,too.

    I can't believe they did this.

    How sad.

    Thanks for posting,it's hard to find.

    I work with experimental Turbines and they say what we do is dangerous....

  • lol. Thats crazy. Who the Hell designed that thing, a drunk monkey?! Its Polish right? Oh no...its the US forest service...lol.