I recently stumbled across a video of a rare 1970’s Winnebago camper. Only a few were built by Winnebago, then a few more were built up later and sold by a company in Florida. But there was a twist.
It was a flying motor home, the Heli-Home, based on a remanufactured Sikorsky S58 military helicopter. Complete with a 1525 HP Wright Cyclone radial engine. In the above picture, one can also see the mobile phone, perhaps being used here to call for help after getting the rotors tangled in a tree
It attracted publicity, including a cover feature in Popular Mechanics, but cost and let’s be honest, impracticality, prevented wide-spread popularity.
Though one feature may have been useful: it was FAA certified to run on automotive gasoline as well as aviation fuel. The sales literature mentions a smaller 800 HP version based on the Sikorsky S55, as well as an optional gas turbine configuration. This was probably a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT-6-3 Twin-Pac Turbine. The S58’s piston engine was the radial Wright R-1820-84 Cyclone with 9 cylinders, a single Stromberg carburetor and a displacement of 1823 cubic inches, or 30 liters. Perhaps the engines in the Heli-Home S58’s were built by Studebaker, which built many of these during the war. The Cyclone is the engine that in diesel form powered the M4A6 version of the World War II Sherman tank.
For more details, watch this very good YouTube video.
Changing the rotor on this would be more work than on a conventional motorhome of the day.
It might be fun to travel in–once.
That opening image, of the couple and the interior of the Helihome just screams peak 1970s. The saturated butterscotch tones and upholstery of the interior, the hairstyles, his luxuriant, garment-like, forearm hair, an LCD watch…and cripes, they’re both wearing sweaters! (well, the President told us to….) I recall at the time thinking that I really really really wanted a future where we all could have our own helicopter, but I hoped that when we got there we wouldn’t always have to dress like those people from the Sears catalog.
The same engine as the Sherman tank? Wow.
And all you have to do is learn to fly a helicopter. What could be simpler?
The name is perfect – though my children would spell it “hella home”. 🙂
It should have come with a portable camper that could be set up a few dozen yards away for the hired pilot that almost everyone who could afford such a thing would need. “Really rich guy with a helicopter license” was probably a pretty small demographic – in fact, they may have totally saturated it with the number they produced.
I wonder if there was a way to spin the blades slowly for a breeze on hot, humid days.
I bet that issue alone doomed this concept. Winnebago’s PR Director said at the time “This falls into the same classification as a yacht.” True, but yachts come with quarters for the crew.
That has to be one of the top 10 dumbest ideas ever. That being said, I never heard about these, so I once again learned something new here today at CC. Thanks!
Well, when you stop and think about it, it may be a bit less dumb than the decades of excited forecasting in Popular Mechanics that came before the Helihome (yeah, JP, I thought Hella Home too!). At least this is something someone could actually purchase and it was based on literally existing (likely government surplus) technology to boot. Yes, there was the little detail about the cost and the advanced training required to operate it…but if you could solve those problems, you could in fact have your own Helihome.
Contrast this with the other Popular Mechanics hype about how nearly “everyone” would be zipping around in personal helicopters/jetpacks/autogyros/flying cars by the 21st century if not sooner. None of that was actually ever brought to market…thank goodness. Talk about dumb ideas; imagine your typical driver of 2022 flying a personal helicopter instead of an SUV? Well, it certainly would have cut down on issues related to population growth…
” imagine your typical driver of 2022 flying a personal helicopter instead of an SUV? Well, it certainly would have cut down on issues related to population growth…”
Not to mention the sky rage that would be taking place. We would see them getting shot out of the sky.
I think the Chinook would’ve made a better camper… Oh wait… 😉
Oh…I get it. Although at first I thought that this is what you meant…
A little old RV wouldn’t be any problem for one of these things to fly around with.
Yes Jeff, I meant the venerable military chopper (it would be way roomier than the Sikorsky), but this was more about me having a little fun with Paul.
Before he bought and customized his ProMaster, his camper of choice was a ’77 Dodge Chinook….
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/auto-biography-1977-dodge-chinook-concourse-the-beginning-and-end-of-a-15-year-love-affair/
I have trouble resisting an opportunity for a bad pun. 😉
It’s amusing that these were actually sold to the public, though I’m awfully curious how many actually found buyers.
I like this ad from an Ohio RV dealer. First, for advertising a $300,000 Heli-Home ($1.5 million in today’s dollars), but also for offering a free Heli-Home ride with any RV purchased (noted in the upper-left of the ad). That may have been the Heli-Home’s most useful purpose – as a Halo Vehicle for RVs in general.
You know, this just keeps getting more interesting (to me at least).
Your point that the Heli-Home would cost $1.5mil in today’s money kind of puts this into perspective in a way. One might think of this as being sort of equivalent to owning a Gulfstream jet today…which costs between $20million to $60million in today’s money, today. Looking at it that way, a giant helicopter that you can live in and take places you’d not be able to land a plane is a bargain at $1.5million.
Heck, this thing is only about 50% more than an EarthRoamer, and it has a ton (probably literally) more presence than a tarted-up Ford 550.
(As a matter of full disclosure, I should note that I was an avid reader and subscriber to Popular Mechanics in the 70s…I’m surprised I don’t still have hardcopy of this issue as I only recently divested myself of my collection of Rotor and Wing magazines from the mid-70s. I ate up this stuff hook line and sinker. I am still waiting for my jetpack and flying car.)
If he were alive, this looks exactly like the sort of thing Henry Ford would take on one of his camping trips with Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone. Or maybe even William Randolph Hearst would have one.
The bottom line is the Heli-Home or Heli-Camper are nothing more than an outdoor plaything for an eccentric (but uber-wealthy) individual.
That article is here, starting on page 102 of the September 1977 issue. But before you read it, scroll up and look at pages 100 and 101.
Excellent. There’s much about the 70s that I don’t miss. This is an excellent example.
Although I do wonder about the giant WOODEN sideview mirrors accessorizing the “Chinese landscape and southern cypress swamp” winner. I’m pretty sure that one of houses I lived in back around 1972 had kitchen cabinets made out of the same stuff. 🙂
Which is the excellent example? The Heli-Home, or those customised vans?
The vans. The Heli-Home is just the opposite. It’s an example of the entirely fabulous, yet also entirely bonkers, future that never would be.
Oh, c’mon; how can you hate those vans?! They’re the epitome of camp!
A real joy to page thru the entire magazine.
Brings back lots of memories…
Never saw much in camping, until now….;-)
Piston engine big helicopters were still a thing in 1977? Maintenance costs on that radial must have been huge.
I was fascinated to find out that those old helicopters had a big radial engine behind that bulbous snout. Only 600 HP if I recall correctly.
In “Chickenhawk”, Vietnam vet Robert Mason tells of transitioning from the lumbering old piston-engined Sikorsky to the jet-turbine-powered Bell UH-1 (“Huey”).
The Sikorsky was featured in a 1965 LIFE magazine article, where photographer Larry Burrows flew an ARVN troop-insertion mission in Yankee Papa 13, a US Army helicopter.
I’ve got to think the drivetrain on this thing would just shake the passenger cabin in to pieces. I remember driving in the family camper and having cabinets shake open on rough patches of road, sending dry goods and pots spilling across the floor. Plus, you’d all be deaf by the time you got to the campground.
How stupid.
What a ridiculous idea.
Door mounted M134 mini gun optional equipment?
Don’t want to land in a hot LZ,
Just saying.
I guess the old “drugs are bad!” people were right .
I don’t want a jet pack anymore, more’s the pity .
Military surplus 1960’s vintage Bell 203’s etc. supposedly can never be certified , why we got them for free from the Feds…..
-Nate