This is not weird at all, only tragic.

ok, I can't find any excuses for this one.
I can't understand how the slightest helicopter pilot would not understand the risk of induced torque in transitional flight. you need antitorque on the tail. Here it's the metallic structure that was suffering all the stress pressure and eventually broke.

Apart if you're using a counter-rotative helicopter like the most of the Kamov ones (or those little cheap drones). The standard helicopter flight is very unstable during the takeoff and landing (partialy due to the air flow that rebounce on the ground upward). This can create vibrations.

So vibration + torque effect I can't see how they do have found helicopter pilots for this.

I wouldn't have wanted to be in this.

More : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasecki_PA-97

And still they tried many times.. (Waiting for Captain to rescue)..

You only need to look at it to realize it's gonna go down.

well, at least they used helium instead of hydrogen...

And another huge waste of tax payers' money from the US army.

I have to admit that did not look very safe at all.

I spent a lot of time computing vibration and resonance effects in helicopter structures. I cannot believe I never heard of this engineering mostrosity.

doesn`t take an engineer to see that this was a big mistake . 40 million bucks ! politicians mad lots of cash back then !

#7 this was not an army project. It was funded by the US forestry service.

But yeah, good money gone to waste. In 1980, $40 mio USD buys you a lot of school books...

A fool and his 40 million dollars will soon be parted...

$30 million dollars? For helium and decommissioned helicoptors and an aluminum "frame"? I'm sure it got the Republican stamp of approval. Fucktards.