Word: whirlybirding
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...Whirlybird Rescue. Hardest hit of all Europe, however, were the valleys of Switzerland and Austria, where only a month ago hotelkeepers, hoping for good ski weather, had despaired of the unseasonable warmth. There, the choking Staublawinen (dust avalanches), which literally drown their victims in a rush of dry, powdery snow, and the hurtling Rutschlawinen (slide avalanches), which bury their victims under sliding tons of packed snow, ice and boulders, wrought fearful havoc...
...when done with helicopters. The owner of a big Texas pecan grove no longer sends Mexican laborers clambering into his trees?he simply flies a helicopter over the grove when the nuts get ripe, and the rotor blows the crop to the ground before lunchtime on harvest day. The whirlybird is proving a heaven-sent device for motion-picture directors; a camera fixed in a helicopter can hang motionless high in the sky over battle scenes, or follow the U.S. Cavalry to the rescue through the steepest canyons. Four Bell helicopters, two dressed like boys and the others like girls...
...Marine Corps is wrestling with many a problem of combat yet to come. In Korea they have already proved to their own satisfaction the benefits of armored vests, of close air support, and of helicopter lifts to front-line areas. Marine planners of 1952 are already using the whirlybird as at. least a partial substitute for landing craft...
...Culver City, Calif., mechanics wheeled out the world's largest known helicopter for its first test flight last week. As the 125-ft.-long rotor blade began to twirl, the monster whirlybird rose aloft and flew around the field at a height of about 40 feet for 8.9 minutes. The XH-17, built for the Air Force by Planemaker Howard Hughes, is designed to lift for short distances loads of several tons (e.g., artillery, bridge sections, tanks and trucks) by straddling them like a lumber carrier. Power is provided by two General Electric turbojet engines astride the fuselage plus...
...Bell's HSL helicopter, a huge, tandem-rotored affair powered by a 2,400 h.p. engine and carrying a crew of four. The new whirlybird's job will be to protect U.S. convoys from enemy attack by hovering over the ocean, dunking a special sonar buoy into the water to listen for subs...