[High-Tech/Vehicles] Rugged, Simple SAR/Medevac Helicopters

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by phayman53

So I looked over the wikipedia pages at the different classes of US Coast Guard cutters to see what kinds of helicopters they carried. To my surprise, I got some reasonably useful results, though there is still some guesswork:

The Medium Endurance Cutters of about 210ish feet in length and smaller cutters that have helicopter pads only seem to be able to take the HH-65 Dolphins. This probably means they could take most helicopters of about 10k lbs and smaller (loaded weight, not empty). Not sure if the limiting factor is the length or the weight though. Probably a bit of both. The HH-65 is relatively short at a little over 44 ft long (including the main rotor I think) compared to the UH-1 at 57 including the main rotor, but much of that could hang over the fantail.

The larger Medium Endurance Cutters and larger ships are 270 feet or more in length. They can land both the HH-65 and the HH-60J Jayhawks. The HH-60J is 14,500 lbs empty and maxes at 21,884 lbs. It is also almost 65 ft long.

I guess the moral of the story is ships over about 250 ft can probably take helicopters in the 10k-25k lbs range and ships under 250 ft but above probably 190ish feet (?) can take up to about a 10k lbs helicopter.

EDIT: And, of course, this would change with hull design. Wider beam ships could probably take relatively heavier helicopters at a shorter length than sleek hulled ships like Coast Guard Cutters. Anyway, I hope this gives some guidelines you can use.

Ooh, I really want a surplus Seaplane tender or two.

I also thought about USCGC Courageous (WMEC-622). In real life, it was decommissioned in September 2001 and eventually it was donated to Sri Lanka in June 2004. I'm wondering if a private buyer might have bought it (without weapon systems or the like, of course) in 2001-2004 and what kind of money that would cost.