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Sikorsky H-5 allowed rescues behind enemy lines in Korea

The Sikorsky H-5 was the first helicopter widely used by the Air Force, and the first to carry out combat rescues during the Korean War.

It was a straightforward design, typical of early helicopters, with a single pilot and up to three crew members on a bench behind him.

“By today’s standards, it had limited lifting capacity and short range,” said retired Maj. Richard Kirkland, who flew the H-5 in Korea. “For its time, though, the H-5 marked a revolution. It enabled us to fly behind enemy lines, land almost anywhere, and pick up a ‘friendly’ who needed rescuing.”

Initially called the R-5, the first helicopter in this series made its maiden flight Aug. 18, 1943.

It was too late for World War II, but the helicopter remained in production afterward. Its power plant was a 450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-985 piston engine and its main rotor was 48 feet in diameter. The |R-5F version introduced a slightly enlarged fuselage and a slightly longer rotor.

When the Air Force overhauled its system for naming aircraft in 1948, it replaced the “R” for rotorcraft category with “H” for helicopter and the R-5 became the H-5. Soon afterward, the final versions of the helicopter — the H-5G and |H-5H — were introduced with improved rescue hoists and other minor |upgrades.

A fully loaded R-5B version weighed just 4,825 pounds, and had a maximum speed of 106 mph and a service ceiling of 14,400 feet. Some H-5s carried stretcher patients in pods that attached externally to the fuselage.

Although some H-5 pilots flew at night in Korea, the Air Force did not train, and was not ready, for nocturnal operations.

“One of our guys was killed after he rescued somebody up near the Yalu River [between North Korea and Manchuria] and made the mistake of allowing night to fall before he got home,” said retired Maj. Charles Field, another H-5 pilot. “I stayed out after dark on a mission in my |H-5 one night and they told me I would have to wipe that 45 minutes of flying time off my record, because it violated the rules. We didn’t even have exterior running lights on those H-5s.”

Even with the minor improvements of the later |versions, the H-5 wasn’t ideal for Korea. The mountainous Korean peninsula has the full extreme of seasons.

“Lubricant can freeze. Engines can seize,” Field said. “In cold temperatures, the H-5 suffered most from its inherent center-of-gravity problems, which pilots sometimes solved by carrying a 5-gallon jerry can filled with sand and shifting the can’s location, as appropriate, to cope with weight and balance changes.”

Rapid progress was made in helicopter design as a result of lessons learned in Korea. The Air Force retired most of its H-5s in the 1950s. h