The sound you’re hearing right now is iconic. The twin rotors making
that sound are mounted on one of the most iconic aircraft to ever take to the skies.
The first proper utility helicopter and the last chopper out of Saigon – today we
take a deep dive into the UH-1, or as you probably know it; The Huey.
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In every war since the beginning of time, military commanders have had to wrestle with two issues:
how to get troops and materiel into the fight, and how to get wounded soldiers out of it.
The first battlefield ambulances had appeared as early as the 18th century,
with the French “flying ambulances”, that used the same carriages as the horse-drawn
“flying artillery” or artillerie volante to get wounded men off the battlefield.
This method, with the addition of a piston engine around a century later,
would remain the status quo. Until Korea, where the flying ambulance became a reality.
The Korean war would see the first battlefield uses of helicopters, with vehicles like the
Sikorsky H-5 and H-19, the Hiller OH-23, and the iconic Bell H-13 providing new solutions
to medical evacuations, pilot rescues and resupply missions. These early helicopters were tiny, slow,
noisy and unreliable, but they proved that the helicopter had a place on the modern battlefield.
But at this point, nobody had any idea how important this new vehicle was going to become.
In 1954, the US Army would launch a design competition for a new utility and medevac
helicopter. The specification called for a vehicle that could move a payload of 360kg, for
a distance of at least 365km, cruising at a speed of 184km/h, at a service ceiling of 1800 metres.
Many thought this completely impossible, and it certainly looked that way,
but the pioneers over at Bell Helicopters thought otherwise.
They had gained the army’s trust thanks to the hugely successful Bell 47,
an already iconic vehicle and one that had saved many lives in Korea.
But its tiny 200hp piston engine was extremely limiting. Larger designs like the Sikorsky H-19
were more capable, but the heavy radial engine mounted awkwardly in the nose of the H-19 limited
its mobility. A new approach would be needed. Bell found no real advantage of using piston
engines, and for the new design they wanted to use a gas turbine – it was the jet age after all.
Luckily for them, the army had been funding their own turbine powerplant, the 700hp Lycoming
XT53, the brainchild of German engineer Dr Anselm Franz, the man who had been behind the
Jumo 004 engines that powered many of the aircraft from my German Jet video.
Bell and Lycoming would work together to adapt this engine for helicopter use,
using the basic structure of the Bell 47 in a larger, fully enclosed design,
with the lightweight engine and gearbox mounted just below the rotor.
This design would end up winning the army contract, with 3 prototypes of the vehicle
ordered in June 1955. Bell called it the Model 204, while the Army knew it as the XH-40.
The new aircraft was a simple, tidy design. Unlike the H-19 the pilots and passengers were all on the
same level, and the helo was easy to get in and out of thanks to the low floor and large
cabin doors. Testing in October 1956 found no major problems with the design, and after
a six-vehicle service batch was completed, nine pre-production aircraft were ordered.
Originally the Bell 204 was going to be the H-40, but the Army revised their
designation system and the new helicopter was known instead as the HU-1 Iroquois.
In reality nobody called the HU-1 the Iroquois. The HU, standing for “Helicopter,
Utility”, gave rise to a far superior and completely unofficial nickname – the Huey.
The first Hueys were delivered to the Army in June 1959, with Bell Helicopter and the US
Army still unaware that they had just created one of the most iconic vehicles in history.
The HU-1A was not THE Huey we all know and love, however, and work was already underway
of the first of many variants. The Army was concerned that the A model wouldn’t have the
power to handle “hot and high” conditions, and a more powerful engine was requested.
The HU-1B, first flying in early 1960, would use either the 960hp T53-L-5 or the 1100hp T53-L-11,
and would have a stretched fuselage, able to carry either 7 troops or 3 stretchers,
2 sitting casualties and a medic, or nearly 1.4 tons of cargo.
With the introduction of the HU-1B, some in the Army were beginning to understand the
potential that the vehicle had, namely a General Hamilton Howze, the director of Army Aviation.
He was incredibly excited about the idea of moving vast amounts of infantry
around a battlefield using these new helicopters, and in 1961 headed the
Tactical Mobility Requirements Board, which was formed to test new theories of warfare.
The Army created the 11th Air Assault Division specifically to test Howze’s theories,
and trials began of this new, helicopter mobile infantry division. The 11th did have some glaring
disadvantages – it’s mobility on the ground was poor, it was vulnerable to armoured assaults,
and operations could be easily hampered by bad weather. However the advantages couldn’t be
ignored – blisteringly fast tempo and reaction times, long range capability, high flexibility
and the ability to concentrate forces at key points to rapidly achieve their objectives.
These trials showed that the 11th Air Assault Division could easily find their opposition and
then quickly bring in all the firepower and supplies necessary to destroy him before the
enemy could react. The Huey helicopter and these successful tests would fundamentally change how
the Army was planning to deploy and resupply it’s infantry from this point on, and on 1st July 1965
the 11th Air Assault Division, along with elements of the 10th Air Transport Brigade and the 2nd
Infantry, would combine to form the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Less than a month later,
1st Cav would be sent overseas, to join the fighting in the dense jungles of Vietnam.
But this was not the Huey’s first experience of combat, nor of Vietnam.
3 years earlier, in March 1962, the first Huey’s, now using the designation UH-1A,
were deployed to the country as part of the 57th Medical Detachment, flying medevac missions
for the South Vietnamese long before the US had begun any sort of official involvement.
Over the next few years, as the American presence increased, UH-1Bs were deployed
as transport aircraft, and soon would be ferrying US Army troops into combat,
with many airframes being modified to carry rockets, machine guns and grenade launchers.
The Army had already begun to develop tactics for the dense jungle landing zones in-country. As the
troop laden transport helicopters approached the LZ, special gunship aircraft would swoop down,
spraying the treeline with rockets and machine gun fire. Transports would then touch down, unloading
their troops into the tall grass and taking off again within seconds, while their on-board door
gunners would spray their M60 machine guns for cover. Suddenly, thanks to the Huey,
Army commanders could deploy entire battalions deep within enemy territory in just a few minutes.
By 1965, when the 1st Cavalry arrived on the scene, there were almost 200,000 American troops
stationed in Vietnam, and the division, along with its 400 UH-1 helicopters, would soon begin
to encounter and engage large numbers of Viet Cong as well as North Vietnamese Army regulars.
Many predicted that the Americans, most of whom were drafted, would perform incredibly poorly
against the North Vietnamese, a nation who had been fighting for decades - first the Japanese,
then the French, then the South and now the US. However. Hanoi didn’t have the Huey helicopter.
And they had not, unlike the Americans, spent the last 10 years devising a new
type of helicopter mobile warfare. Despite their elaborate intelligence networks, the NVA could
never predict the American’s movements, or when the next troop laden Huey’s would swoop down to
deploy hundreds of well-equipped Army infantrymen. The arrival of the UH-1C in September 1965 only
made things even easier for the Army. The C model Hueys were more powerful and more manoeuvrable,
and had been designed specifically to be used as gunships , bristling with 2.75in rockets, 40mm
grenade launchers, 7.62mm M60 Light Machine Guns or M21 Miniguns. The B model, now the standard in
Vietnam, would be used for troop transport, while the C model would support in the gunship role.
The first big test for the Air Cavalry would come in the battle of the Ia Drang Valley in late 1965,
where American troops were deployed into the valley at two Landing Zones, LZs X-Ray and Albany,
and would be forced to defend these drop zones after coming under attack from a huge number
of North Vietnamese troops. Using helicopter, fixed wing and artillery support the Americans
were able to hold the landing zones and drive away the oncoming North Vietnamese,
but both sides took a large number of casualties and both claimed victory.
The battles of Ia Drang proved to be a blueprint for both side’s tactics
moving forward. The Americans would use their extreme mobility and overwhelming
firepower to attempt to seize their objectives in seek and destroy missions.
The Vietnamese, meanwhile, would counter this by attacking the Americans before they could
deploy this firepower. PAVN Colonel Nguyen Huu An said to his troops attacking LZ Albany
“Move inside the column, grab them by the belt, and thus avoid casualties from
the artillery and air”. The Americans would logically be a lot less confident calling in
air strikes on their own positions, after all. Ia Drang would also see the first large-scale
deployment of a new Huey Helictoper, the UH-1D. The D Model was significantly larger, capable of
carrying 12 troops or up to six stretcher cases, soon becoming the Army’s primary combat transport
and medevac aircraft in Vietnam, while UH-1B and C vehicles would be used as the gunship role.
The longer UH-1D and UH-1H Hueys can be identified from the fact they have 2 windows
in their stretched side doors, rather than the single larger window of the A, B and C models.
Colloquially, the Troop Transports would be known as “Slicks” due to the lack of
weapons on the sides of the helicopters. The armed Hueys would be the “Gunships”,
and the Medevac choppers would be known as “Dustoffs”, in honour of the radio callsign of
Major Charles Kelly, commander of the original US Army medical evacuation unit in Vietnam.
Dustoff Hueys would accomplish just under 30,000 medical evacuations in 1969, saving countless
lives. In World War 2, 29% of all wounded US Soldiers died. In Korea this fell to 26%.
The widespread use of Medevac helicopters in Vietnam would see this plummet to only 19%.
In total, 400,000 people were transported by dustoff hueys in Vietnam, with pilots
flying dangerous missions into “Hot” LZs, willing to drop directly into
a firefight in an attempt to save lives. The Huey would be instrumental in trying
to deal with the massive Tet offensive of 1968, allowing the US to quickly evacuate,
support and redeploy its forces to inflict massive casualties on the Vietnamese. Tet also
saw the introduction of the first dedicated attack helicopter, the AH-1G HueyCobra, which was based
very closely off the Huey while being faster, more manoeuvrable, and carrying more firepower.
The Huey itself was relatively resilient, being able to take a significant amount of hits from
small arms fire up to and including 12.7mm machine gun rounds and still stay airborne.
That being said, the crew inside were vulnerable, with the thin aluminium plating providing little
to no protection. The pilots at least had some armour plate beneath them, but anyone in the back
was encouraged to sit on their helmet if they wanted any chance of stopping an enemy round.
By the 1970s the US had started to withdraw from Vietnam, which was good timing for Huey pilots
as the NVA had started to introduce soviet made man portable surface to air missile
systems like the SA-7 Strela, a weapon that would have been incredibly dangerous to the
low flying helicopters. The South Vietnamese pilots had to immediately devise new tactics
to avoid these weapons, something the Americans never had to deal with.
When Saigon fell in 1975, Huey helicopters were still the main vehicle for evacuation,
flying out to American ships waiting offshore and unloading their cargo before flying back or,
sometimes, simply being pushed off the deck to make room for more aircraft.
The Huey had shaped the Vietnam war, and had proved such a huge influence on how that war was
fought by both sides. The Vietnam war, likewise, had shaped the Huey, with the nimble UH-1C,
the stretched UH-1D and H and the sleek AH-1G all arising directly from the conflict.
The end of the Vietnam war was in no way the end of the Huey helicopter, though.
The UH-1H I’ve mentioned a couple of times was introduced around 1968,
and was outwardly identical to the UH-1D, but mounted a more powerful engine. By the time the
last UH-1H was delivered in 1976, over 5400 had been produced, making it by far the most numerous
variant of the Huey, compared to 2000 UH-1Ds, 750 UH-1Cs, 1000 UH-1Bs and less than 200 UH-1As.
The Marines had their own Huey, the UH-1E, which had been modified for carrier operations by
adding a rescue hoist, a rotor brake, and using anti-corrosive materials. The UH-1F was used by
the US Air Force for missile site support duties, as well as the very mysterious UH-1P, which flew
classified “Psychological Warfare” missions in Vietnam. The Navy would have the HH-1K and UH-1L,
both based on the sea faring UH-1E and used for Search and Rescue duties as well as training.
The UH-1N would be the next major upgrade for the series. With twin gas turbine engines. As early
as 1965 Bell had been working on a Model 208, fitting a UH-1D airframe with two T72 turboshafts
on a common gearbox, each rated to over 900hp. Combined this would’ve been too much for the rotor
to handle, so each jet was derated down to 765hp. However, if one of these engines failed the other
could be brought back up to 900hp, providing more than enough power to keep the helicopter airborne.
These dual engine Hueys were faster, more capable and significantly safer,
and the UH-1N became the new standard. Production vehicles used Canadian PT6T turboshafts, and would
be deployed as early as 1970 with the Air Force, seeing some limited action in Vietnam. The Twin
Huey would see combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, but by this point the airframes were showing their age
and replacements were looked at – but the marines decided instead to upgrade the Huey one last time.
The UH-1Y was such a big upgrade that it was decided to simply make them as new aircraft,
known as the Venom. The Venom uses a 4-blade all composite rotor system, new engines, is almost
half a metre longer, and boasts a digital cockpit with new avionics and electronics. Compared to
the N model, the Venom has a larger payload, a greater range, less vibration and operates
at a much higher cruising speed. It’s a massive upgrade package, but it was required to keep a
nearly 70 year old design in service today. The AH-1G HueyCobra, known usually as just
the Cobra, is also still in service today as the AH-1Z Viper, and has its own interesting
history including the AH-1J and T SeaCobras the AH-1W SuperCobra and the Bell KingCobra,
and I’d love to do a video on those airframes if there’s any interest. Until then,
I hope you’ve enjoyed this very quick snapshot into the development and service history of one
of the most recognisable and influential aircraft of all time – the UH-1 Huey.
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