In June 1948 Boulet made the first post-World War II helicopter flight in France in a SNCASE SE-3101. Boulet ended up flying because the designated pilot weighed too much to get airborne.Despite this rather dramatic and nearly catastrophic introduction to the helicopter, Boulet would soon become the primary helicopter test pilot for SNCASE, which later became Sud Aviation and then the helicopter division of A\u00e9rospatiale. As these companies grew into one of the world\u2019s leading helicopter manufacturers, Boulet was at the controls for test flights of the SE-3101, Alouette I, II and III, Frelon, Super Frelon, Lama and Puma helicopters. He helped define the role of helicopter test pilots in the development of new aircraft. \u201cWe suggest and request modifications and we decide the way a helicopter must be flown,\u201d he said. \u201cWe request things such as an increase in power, which we did for the Alouette II.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boulet also set the world\u2019s record for helicopter altitude three times. His third record-setting altitude flight almost ended in disaster after the engine of his Lama flamed out during a descent through a thick layer of clouds. As he always did, Boulet managed to find a way to survive.<\/p>\n
After the crash landing in New Jersey, Boulet was able to fly 10 hours in another Helicopter Air Transport helicopter before the company went bankrupt and ceased operations. He completed his helicopter pilot training in Scotland and returned to France and SNCASE, which was ready to test fly its first helicopter, the SE-3101, in June 1948. The SE-3101 was an experimental helicopter designed by German aviation pioneer Henrich Focke of Focke-Wulf fame. An updated version of the Focke-Achgelis Fa 223, it had twin tail rotors, an uncovered fuselage and was powered by an 85-horsepower Mathis engine. After months of tie-down tests, the helicopter was ready for its first flight.<\/p>\n
Another pilot, who had experience with autogiros, was going to make the first test flight. He was a bit heavier than Boulet and the underpowered aircraft was unable to lift off the ground. \u201cSo, the manager told me to try because I was lighter,\u201d Boulet said. \u201cI was young and thin and was able to take off and hold it off the ground.\u201d This was \u201cthe first helicopter to be flown in France after the end of the war,\u201d said Charles Marchetti in Vertical Flight: The Age of the Helicopter<\/em>, a book published by the Smithsonian\u2019s National Air and Space Museum in 1984. Marchetti was a chief engineer and the A\u00e9rospatiale helicopter division general manager.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe SE-3101 flew a total of about 20 hours over the next two years but did not go into production due to several stability and control problems. It was able to achieve \u201csatisfactory\u201d forward flight without too much instability or vibration, according to Marchetti, but \u201cduring hovering and approach or forward flight near the ground the instability of the aircraft became obvious.\u201d<\/p>\nBoulet examines the barograph from his Alouette II that confirmed he had broken Wester\u2019s record by more than 2,400 feet on June 6, 1955.The company\u2019s first production helicopter was the SE-3130 Alouette II, which was also the first production helicopter with a gas-turbine engine instead of the more conventional piston-driven engine. The first flight took place on March 12, 1955, with Boulet at the controls. \u201c[W]e had a few problems to solve, but we were able to solve them by working very hard because we knew we had to catch up with the American industry which had started production in 1944,\u201d he said. Eventually the company manufactured more than 1,300 SE-3130s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boulet was SNCASE\u2019s only test pilot in 1955, which was problematic. \u201cThe company said you cannot be the only one because if you are ill, we cannot fly,\u201d Boulet said. \u201cSo, we engaged more pilots, three or four in 1956 and 1957.\u201d The number of test pilots grew over the next few decades. \u201cWhen I was chief test pilot, I always had control and would not do things I did not think were safe,\u201d Boulet said. \u201cAnd when the other pilots flew, I always signed the flight order. I only lost one pilot. He was doing a demo flight in Germany and ran into a cable. It was the only bad accident we had. We had some crashes, but not any other bad crashes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boulet first attempted to break the helicopter altitude record on June 6, 1955, in the Alouette II, just three months after the aircraft\u2019s first flight. The existing record was 24,524 feet, set by U.S. Army warrant officer Billy Wester in a Sikorsky S-59.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The higher a helicopter ascends into the thin air at high altitudes, the more difficult it becomes for the engine to maintain power and the rotor blades to maintain lift. Yet Boulet said the flight, during which he reached a record 26,932 feet, \u201cwas not very difficult.\u201d This is an example of his modesty, as the flight was, in fact, quite difficult indeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He took off from the Buc airfield, about 10 miles southwest of Paris. \u201cI just had to apply the pitch and climb,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there was a problem with cockpit icing and I couldn\u2019t see too well. Then, when I started to descend, I had a flame-out and couldn\u2019t restart the engine.\u201d Boulet was forced to autorotate, a technique where the pilot disengages the main rotor from the engine so the blades can be rotated by aerodynamic forces only, without any mechanical assistance. Autorotation will slow a descent but won\u2019t stop it. \u201cThere was a strong wind that took me very far from the field I took off from, but I was able to land.\u201d Boulet\u2019s record was broken in December 1957 when U.S. Army captain James Bowman reached 30,335 feet in a Cessna YH-41 Seneca helicopter. <\/p>\nOne development that Boulet applauded was the Fenestron, which eliminated a safety hazard by enclosing the tail rotor of the A\u00e9rospatiale Gazelle.On June 13, 1958, Boulet began heading skyward in another Alouette II, determined to regain the helicopter altitude record for Sud Aviation and France. He climbed quickly when \u201csuddenly I heard a loud bang and the engine stopped,\u201d he said. Once again, he had to autorotate. \u201cWhen I landed, we discovered that the casing of the engine had broken completely in two.\u201d Despite the broken engine, Boulet had reached 36,027 feet and reclaimed the altitude record. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, SNCASE merged with SNCASO (Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale des Constructions A\u00e9ronautique du Sud-Ouest) to form Sud Aviation, and Marchetti began designing the larger, seven-seat Alouette III. The helicopter made its first flight on February 28, 1959. Boulet was at the controls and flight engineer Robert Malus was also aboard. Marchetti reported that the new helicopter flew beautifully and that Boulet managed to land a fully loaded Alouette III on top of France\u2019s Mont Blanc, an altitude of 15,777 feet. \u201cIn November 1960, on the occasion of a presentation in India, he landed with a passenger and 250 kilograms (551 pounds) of cargo in the Himalayas at an altitude of 6,004 meters (19,698 feet). At that time, this was an unprecedented feat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sud Aviation\u2019s next aircraft was the Frelon, which was the forerunner of the more successful SE321 Super Frelon. A long list of problems was discovered in the early test flights of the Frelon, Boulet reported. \u201cThis helicopter had three engines which was something very new for us and we had a lot of problems, with incidents on almost every test flight. Once we had a severe instability with the helicopter. I was just about to tell the crew to jump out, but then I was able to gain control at the very last minute.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On another test flight, problems with faulty servocontrols almost caused a crash. \u201cIt was not possible to hold the stick because it was moving completely to the left, and I could not pull it back, no matter how hard I tried,\u201d Boulet said. \u201cFinally, with the help of my copilot, I was able to pull the stick back and gain control. This was not a very fun test program, and the crew was always tense during test flights.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Test flights for the Super Frelon began in December 1962 and were a lot more successful than those for the Frelon. With Boulet at the controls, the Super Frelon set a new speed record for helicopters of 350 kilometers an hour (217.5 miles per hour).<\/p>\nBoulet made his final record-setting flight on June 21, 1972, taking off from an airfield near Marseille in a A\u00e9rospatiale\u2019s SA 315B Lama that had been stripped of all unnecessary equipment to save weight.To meet the French army\u2019s new requirement for a medium-sized, all-weather helicopter, Sud Aviation began developing what would become the SA 330 Puma. The prototype made its first flight on April 15, 1965. As usual, Boulet was flying and, of course, there were problems, as there are in the initial test flights of almost every prototype aircraft. There were a lot of vibrations \u201cthat made it very unpleasant for the pilot and crew,\u201d Boulet said. It didn\u2019t really make it harder to fly, but it was difficult to see the instruments because of all the shaking.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Marchetti and his team solved the shaking problem by developing a suspension system that isolated the gearbox from the rest of the aircraft. It was called the \u201cbarbeque system\u201d because the structure resembled a barbeque grill. Sud Aviation ended up manufacturing about 685 Puma helicopters.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n
In 1970 Sud-Aviation became A\u00e9rospatiale and in quick succession designed three new, single-turbine helicopters: the Gazelle, \u00c9cureuil and Dauphin. The Gazelle had two unique features: fiberglass rotor blades and the Fenestron design in which the anti-torque tail rotor was surrounded by a circle of material instead of being completely exposed. Boulet especially appreciated the Fenestron, which he referred to as \u201cthe fan-in-fin tail rotor.\u201d \u201cI had a bad experience at the beginning of the Alouette II test program,\u201d he said. \u201cI was at the controls with the aircraft on the ground, and a man who was not noticed by the mechanics walked head-first into the tail rotor. It was horrible and there was blood everywhere and pieces everywhere. I was traumatized by this and lived in fear that it could happen again. Because of this, I loved the Fenestron and worked very hard to make it successful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boulet was not as taken with the fiberglass rotor blades that had replaced the traditional metal blades, at least initially. \u201cAt high speed we had a lot of flutter, and this, of course, meant a lot of vibration,\u201d he said of the early test flights with the composite blades. \u201cThis [vibration] was so bad that I thought the helicopter was going to break into pieces. The stick was moving all over the cockpit, but happily, after a few seconds, I was able to recover with the help of the copilot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A\u00e9rospatiale\u2019s SA 315B Lama was a redesigned and more powerful version of the Alouette II that was intended to fly at high altitudes and in hot temperatures for the Indian army. It was first manufactured in 1971 and Boulet decided this was the perfect helicopter in which to set a new altitude record. To make that possible, it was necessary to lighten the aircraft by removing all possible instruments, taking out the passenger seats and replacing the standard fuel tank with a smaller one. Engineers modified the turbine Turbomeca engine to increase power by about 6 percent. After Boulet started the engine,\u00a0mechanics\u00a0removed the battery and starter motor to further lighten the aircraft. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Boulet and the Lama leaped into the air on June 21, 1972, from an airfield near Marseille. Trouble started almost immediately. \u201cDuring the climb, there were some clouds, but I was able to climb through a hole in them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut all the time I was worried about my descent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nBoulet\u2019s descent following his final altitude record was especially tense. After his engine failed he was forced to autorotate to a safe landing. He also lacked some instruments, which had been removed to save weight, as well as his generator and battery.Boulet was able to reach the stunning altitude of 40,820 feet and smash the previous record of 36,027 feet he had set in 1958. However, his worries on the way up proved prescient on the way down when Boulet couldn\u2019t find the hole in the clouds for his descent. \u201cMy cockpit was completely frozen, and visibility was very bad. And also, there was some mist on the ground, which made it very hard to see the ground and tell how high up I was.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As if these weren\u2019t enough problems, as he began to descend through the clouds, his engine failed. Without the generator and battery, which had been removed, he had no way to restart the engine. This meant Boulet would have to perform the world\u2019s highest and most dangerous autorotation, without the help of the horizon indicator and compass, which had also been removed. \u201cSo, I had to go through 13,000 feet of clouds without instruments,\u201d Boulet said. \u201cThe only way for me not to go upside down was to watch for the brightness of the sun. I could barely see where the sun was by looking for the bright spot in the clouds, and I tried to keep this spot above me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Using every bit of the experience he had gained over the years, Boulet managed to keep his helicopter upright. After he broke through the clouds, the warmer air below melted the ice from his cockpit and windshield so Boulet was finally able to see where he and the Lama were going. He landed safely after a descent of about 25 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This was Boulet\u2019s third and final helicopter altitude record, and it has yet to be broken.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boulet remained A\u00e9rospatiale\u2019s chief test pilot until he retired in 1975, ending one of the most illustrious careers of any helicopter or fixed-wing test pilot. \u201cThe rest of us were like members of the orchestra, which Boulet was the star soloist who could take your breath away,\u201d said Claude Picard, a helicopter pilot and a member of A\u00e9rospatiale\u2019s public relations department.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved my job; it was the only thing I wanted to be doing, and I did everything possible to reduce the risks,\u201d Boulet said, adding that there were times when he was frightened. \u201cI remember a few times when I was scared, especially in the days of the Frelon. I put on some warm clothes because when you are scared, you are shivering.\u201d There were also a few perks available to the chief test pilot that helped compensate for the occasional terror. Boulet said that he often flew a helicopter he was testing to his nearby home to have lunch with his wife. And, from time to time, he was able to \u201cborrow\u201d a helicopter for a weekend of skiing. \u201cThis was because in France at that time we had very liberal civil aviation regulations and you could go anywhere provided you had permission of the owner,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the years after he retired, Boulet kept busy skiing, lecturing and writing. He also wrote History of the Helicopter as Told by Its Pioneers 1907-1956,<\/em> which he published in 1984. Boulet died on February 13, 2011. He was 90.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n[ad_2]Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] Jean Boulet\u2019s first helicopter flight was almost his last. It was September 21, 1947, and the 26-year-old Boulet was at the Camden, New Jersey,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339690,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210970\/revisions\/339690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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