Piaceski PA97 Helistat.

I know John…that is why I Partially disagreed with you.
But generally it may be a fair comment to say that Airships can be a handful anyway,I would imagine the cost/complexity of operating them would still preclude their use for many applications.

sorry John I will have to partially disagree with you…that particular design was extremely poor,an accident waiting to happen.

I was commenting on the general concept of a LTA heavy lift vehicle with helicopters giving it some speed and control.

Obviously, the design of the proof of concept aircraft was faulty…

When you’re discussing proof of concept vehicles that go astray, one must be careful “not to throw the baby out with the bathwater…”

sorry John I will have to partially disagree with you…that particular design was extremely poor,an accident waiting to happen.
Airships can be a little tricky at the best of times,but that thing was …. (censored)
I loved the comment about ‘unexpected’ vibration :rolleyes:
Hmmm…lets hang 4 heavy rotating masses on a flimsy structure…what could possibly go wrong ???

OOPS…what a dumb idea :rolleyes:

Not really, the concept is sound…and I think there are plans for a modernized versions.
IIRC, If put into use, the other 3 helicopters would have been remote controlled…easy stuff nowdays, not so easy back when this was made.

To be fair though James – the clip that I posted did say that one of the pilots was killed by the falling blimp structure !
The poor pilots must have been desparate for cash to even go near that thing,me I would have resigned on the spot ( I am sure Frank T Courtney would also have declined)!!

I think that possibly all the helicopters had a crew in them as four people were seriously injured, the pilot was in the first one that you see come adrift (port rear).
The other thing thats noteworthy is that it happened at Lakehurst, new Jersey – sound familiar?!

That’s one of my big gripes about Youtube, to most it’s all jolly funny looking accidents, and no extra info has been given about fatalities etc.

Thanks, I did not know that and couldn’t find anything else on the web. I think you can see the pilot in one of the helicopters, thanks Baz!

Should also be mentioned that the pilot, Gary Oleshfski, was killed in that crash.

OOPS…what a dumb idea :rolleyes:
slightly better quality footage…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jENWKgMPY&feature=related