HIST OR Y -P AR T IIl
the automobile. The commuter aircraft market never materialized and full scale production of the UH-4 was given up in favor of a more versatile aircraft. The re- sult was a period of development involv- ing several new models and a breakthrough in helicopter stability. This breakthrough was what Stanley Hiller
called the “Rotormatic” cyclic control. It used a series of small paddles mounted on the main rotor blades, which were con- trolled by the pilot, to control the move- ment of the main rotor disk. This system reduced the control forces and greatly in- creased the stability of the aircraft. All of this led to what became arguably the most
successful of Stanley Hiller’s helicopters the Hiller 360 or UN-12.
The Hiller 360, introduced in 1948, was a single main rotor and tail rotor heli- copter. It became only the third helicopter certified for production by the Civil Aero- nautics Authority (Spenser, 2003). The Hiller 360 went into production in 1949, that same year a 360 made the first transcontinental commercial helicopter flight. Stanley Hiller himself flew the last leg of the three month, 5,200 mile demon- stration tour, landing in Manhattan to showcase his helicopter. The 360 caught on quickly and found many uses including agricultural, sight seeing and VIP trans- port applications. A military application quickly became apparent when the United States entered the Korean War. With de- mand for the new found capabilities of he- licopters quickly outpacing the ability of the current helicopter fleets, the U.S. Army turned to United Helicopters to pro- duce a military version of the 360 known as the YH-23 in the Army and HTE-1 in the Navy. The Army began receiving the original YH-23A models in 1950. Al- though these aircraft were credited with saving many lives in Korea they had a low availability rate. An upgraded YN-23B model solved many of these problems and in 1951 alone, 273 B models were re- ceived by the military. Another 453 were built between 1952 and 1955 and they were flown by the British, French, Swiss, Canadian, Dutch and Thai militaries and police forces (Spenser, 2003). In the early 1950s United Helicopters changed its name to Hiller Helicopters and annual sales increased to nearly 15 million dol- lars in 1952. This marked a 25 time in- crease from just four years earlier. The Korean War and its associated military contracts had put Hiller Helicopters on the map. At its peak, Hiller Helicopters em- ployed over 2,000 people. Several up- graded and enlarged versions of the Hiller 360 followed. To date over 3,000 mili- tary and civilian variants of the Hiller 360 have been manufactured. It remains in production today and is one of the longest running production models ever built. A robust research and development program ensued. Many innovative de- signs were developed by the Hiller Heli- copters Advanced Research Division. The XROE-1 or Rotorcycle was a one man collapsible helicopter that could be
18 ROTORCRAFT PROFESSIONAL • March 2010
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