Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
MENTONE – Retired Navy Commander Mike Stock told his story of surviving the crash of the world’s largest aircraft, the Piasecki PA-97 Helistat, during Rotors over Mentone at the Lawrence D. Bell Aircraft Museum Saturday.
Stock started by talking about the history of the logging industry.
In the U.S., there are about 500 million acres of forested land. About one-third of that are designated national forests, Stock said. Canada has 18 times the amount of forest the U.S. has.
“So just in North America, there is a lot of forest that need to be harvested,” Stock said.
Stock said conventional logging methods are determential to the environment. He talked about the need of finding better ways of lumber transportation. He showed how each of the different helicopters were used, but none of them were sustainable because the helicopters could not carry the load weight of the lumber.
“Frank Piasecki was a genius in terms of all the vertical development helicopters,” said Stock, adding Piasecki was not a household name in the helicopter industry.
In 1961, the United States ended its lighter-than-air program, stated Stock. In 1980, Piasecki was given a contract to make a prototype that was founded by the U.S. Forest Service. The $7 million contract was funded by the Forest Service and managed by the U.S. Navy, “in the age where multi-billion dollar contracts were the norm for the big aircraft companies, so Frank was given an almost impossible task,” Stock said.
Piasecki found an old decommissioned Navy blimp at the Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey, he said. His team found aluminum irrigation pipes to use as the inner connective structure of the blimp. The team also found four H-34s. His team “chopped the end off” the blimp and added a pusher propeller to help with propulsion.
“This aircraft was enormous,” Stock said. He asked attendees to put themselves into a NFL stadium about two-thirds up into the stands and face the field. Stock said the Piasecki PA-97 Helistat would be able to get in between the two goal posts in the football stadium. With the width, the Piasecki PA-97 Helistat would nearly be in the spectator seats on either end and people two-thirds of the way up in the stands would be looking at the top of the Piasecki PA-97 Helistat while it was on the ground. The only aircrafts that exceeded this machine were the big dirigibles made by Germans and U.S. military in the 1920s, like the Hindenburg.
The Piasecki PA-97 was designed to lift 23 tons and Piasecki wanted to get the PA-97 to lift 300 tons in the future, Stock said.
The master pilot was Barney Stutsman, 56, an Army pilot at one time, who pioneered the early use of civilian helicopters. He had the first traffic and air ambulance helicopters in Detroit, Mich. He had about 20,000 hours of helicopter time.
The blimp pilot was Louis Prost, a 65-year-old pilot who had about 9,000 hours in “lighter-than-air,” and fought in World War II.
The forward left helicopter pilot was Gary Oleshfski, a 39-year-old Marine, and a Vietnam veteran.
The aft right helicopter pilot was Ken Ruesser, a 66-year old Marine. Ruesser is “famous beyond fame in the Marine Corp,” Stock said. He flew combat in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.m He was shot down in all three of those conflicts and was shot down, Stock believes, a total of five times. Ruesser was one of the most decorated Marine pilots of all time, Stock said.
The first flight was April 26, 1986, and they were able to make four hovering flights afterwards. Stock said the pilots of the four helicopters were 45 feet off the ground when they sat in the cockpits.
Stock said flying the Helistat was exhausting, to the point Stutsman could fly it in a hover for only 10 minutes.
On July 1, 1986, Ruesser’s helicopter developed an oil leak. Once the leak was fixed, the winds were too high and they couldn’t fly. It wasn’t until an hour before sunset the winds died down. They were then able to get the craft in the air.
Stutsman was able to bring the Helistat into a hover and, 5 or 6 minutes later, Stutsman started to bring the craft down.
“And just before we sat it back on the ground, Gary said, ‘That was a great birthday present, let’s do it again.’ About 60 seconds after Gary uttered those words, and I’ll never forget them, he was dead,” Stock said.
As the Helistat was being set down, Stock’s helicopter lost power to the main rotor, and Stutsman decided to terminate the flight. The Helistat accelerated as it went to be hooked back up and a strong wind hit. Stock described the main wheels of the craft starting to “shimmy violently,” and if it continued, would shake the entire aircraft apart.
Oleshfski was killed when his aircraft detached from the blimp after being crushed underneath, Stock said. Oleshfski’s and Ruesser’s helicopters caught fire, but the emergency crews were able to get both out of the burning aircrafts.
Stock said one memory he had was Piasecki standing near the test site, almost being hit by falling debris. Stock said Piasecki didn’t move for about an hour.
Stock showed pictures he took of the crash.
He also said the crash made headlines because it shared the same site of the Hindenburg disaster 49 years prior.
Stock is the sole living survivor of the Helistat crash, and became friends with Piasecki after the crash, “probably because I was one of the only ones who didn’t sue him.” Stock’s goal is to make sure that everyone knows about the Helistat project, and for the memory of Oleshfski to live on.
Also during Saturday’s event, select band members of Tippecanoe Valley High School played the national anthem and a patriotic song. Representative of American Legion Post 49 posted the colors.
