Radio control helicopters have at last hit the world’s headlines. The RC helicopters concerned are not your average 450 pod-and-boomer, of course. We’re talking about the Lockheed Martin/Kaman aerospace K-MAX unmanned RC helicopters, full-sized versions of the single seater heavy lifting choppers they already supply.
The reason KMAX have hit the headlines is because the US Marines are to deploy them for use as supply craft in Afghanistan. You can’t fail to have been moved by recent news events involving our own troop casualties. Well, several of those were manning overland road convoys – the MOD’s preferred method of ferrying supplies through hostile enemy territory. The US, meanwhile, uses mainly helicopters – and suffers far fewer fatalities as a result.
The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (don’t you just love the name?) is constantly advancing military helicopter technology. Any RC enthusiast would love a job here; the researchers are always building scale model RC Helicopters to try out their latest ideas (a crashed T-Rex is one thing, a crashed test pilot quite another).
The Warfighting Lab were working on a prototype for a cheap, reliable helicopter that could fly high, carry heavy loads of 5000lb or more and operate effectively in the hottest weather. Until they discovered the K-MAX UAV, they could never have imagined RC helicopters had already gone full-size. What’s more, they looked a damn sight more like conventional aircraft than the rotational prototypes in their own labs.
Kaman have developed a revolutionary new system of tandem rotor, similar to the principle of co-axial electric helicopters. However, the contra-rotating blades are placed side by side, rather than above each other. The only other full-size contra-rotational craft in regular use are tandems like Chinooks, although prototype co-axial passenger helicopters have been developed.
KMAX RC helicopters can lift loads of up to 6000lb. They have already been tested in non-combat situations like high altitude logging, pylon transport, and fighting forest fires. They are expected to have their first military use in February, 2010.