Hughes 500P.

[snake36bravo]

One of the great things about the forums is the search function for the archives. I've always been interested in 'The Quiet One' which brought me here.

 

I picked up this Central Press Association/UPI photograph this week from April 9th 1971. The original caption reads "The Hughes Tool Co. announced 4/8 it has developed the world's quietest helicopter on a hush-hush basis. The firm said military security prevented disclosure of the precise extent of the noise reduction in the modified Army OH-6A Light Observation Helicopter (Shown during testing), but said high-ranking Defense Dept. officials described it as "dramatic'. The chopper is a four-place, turbine-powered craft which has been used for scouting in the Indochina fighting.".

 

As mentioned in the dead link above:

Hughes OH-6A/500P “12968”  570053 April 71 bailed from US Army 65-12968

 

Service history:

Prototype of the Hughes OH-6A/500P “The Quiet One”; believed used to train three Air America pilots at the USAF’s secret Area 51 testing range in Nevada between the end of April 71 and July 71 for a wiretap mission into North Vietnam (Conboy / Morrison, The quiet one, p. 46); then probably served as a model for the conversion of Air America’s own 2 Hughes 369s to Hughes 500Ps.

 

Fate:

Eventually became N45780 in December 77 (US Register Quarterly 2, winter 77, p. 32);

with the US Border Patrol, El Paso TX, as N45780 at least 1995-96 (BuchAir Helicopters1995/6, p. 252; BuchAir Helicopters1996/7, p. 265; Heli 1997/8, p. 237);

re-registered to Helton Volunteer Search & Rescue, Danville, Indiana, on 9 December 1996; current with them in until 01/31/2022.

Still flying.

 

What's a thread without images?

 

Operational version

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by snake36bravo
de-link

[Cubs2jets]

So...Hughes took a 500C/OH-6A and installed a 5 blade main rotor system, a 4 blade tail rotor and sound proofing around the engine.  I've heard 500C's/D's and OH=6A operate and had the impression that the majority of the sound produced was from the main / tail rotor systems.

 

Anybody here actually hear "The Quiet One" fly that can give an opinion of just how quiet it was?  I doubt it was silent like the mythical "Black Helicopters".  LOL !

 

C2j

[Whiskey]

Man that's crazy, I was just reading about this exact 500 last night.

 

Edited October 6, 2018 by Whiskey

[Whiskey]

 

 

Quote

Just how quiet was the Quiet One? “It was absolutely amazing just how quiet those copters were,” recalls Don Stephens, who managed the Quiet One’s secret base in Laos for the CIA. “I’d stand on the [landing pad] and try to figure out the first time I could hear it and which direction it was coming from. I couldn’t place it until it was one or two hundred yards away.” Says Rod Taylor, who served as project engineer for Hughes, “There is no helicopter today that is as quiet.”

https://www.vhpa.org/stories/AAblack.pdf