The History Of The Army’s Workhorse Huey Helicopter – SlashGear

One running change to the Huey in later order cycles was its powerplant. The early turbine engines produced 700 shaft horsepower, which Army pilots found to be a little underpowered for battlefield conditions. Bell’s answer was an ever-larger string of turbine engines ranging from 960 horsepower up to 1,400 horsepower in some models during the late-1960s.

The Huey’s overall role in the Vietnam War started to morph, too. No longer just a medevac helicopter, some Hueys served as gunships with the addition of machine guns, rocket launchers, and grenade launchers. But “dust-offs,” or medical missions, remain the most famous among the Huey’s uses. Over the course of the conflict, approximately 900,000 patients were rescued by Hueys and their crews.

Records show that Bell Helicopter built approximately 16,000 Hueys from its inception until 1975. Of those, roughly 7,000 saw service in Vietnam. By some accounts, nearly half of those 7,000 Hueys were destroyed during the course of the war.

The Army’s last Huey flew in December 2016. Today, only about a dozen military versions of the Huey are airworthy, mostly flown at air shows or other exhibition events.