Learning something new every day!

This Saturday I went to shoot a video telling a story about a helicopter that was brought up to remove an old chairlift in Deer Valley. I knew a few things about choppers, but not much about the kind that came that morning. That one was used for hauling timber, moving lift towers around or fighting fires.

The aircraft in question was a 1998 K-1200 made by Kaman Aerospace Corporation, powered by a 1,500 hp Alliedsign T5317A-1 engine and owned by Timberline Helicopters, Inc. of Sandpoint, Idaho. This model, also called K-Max has not tail rotor but has two main intermeshing rotors. It's called a synchropter and that particularity gives it a very singular look.

The K-MAX offers two primary advantages over conventional helicopters. The first one is an increased efficiency compared to conventional rotor-lift technology; the other is the synchropter's natural tendency to hover. This increases stability, especially for precision work in placing suspended loads.

At the same time, the synchropter is more responsive to the pilot's control inputs, making it possible to easily and precisely swing a heavy load; in fact, it can lift more than it weighs - 6,000 lbs - and while it burns an average of 85 gallons of fuel per hour during lift operations like this one, it remains the most efficient lift-to-fuel ratio of any helicopter in its class. Its cargo hook capacity is rated at 6,000 lb/2722 kg (that's at sea level. At 10,000 feet it's just 5,163 lb/ 2347 kg and at 15,000 feet it's significantly less: 4,313 lb/ 1960 kg).

An impressive machine that I didn't know existed. Don't we learn something new everyday?