Kaman HH-43 Huskie

A Huskie is rigged with firefighting equipment at Cam Ranh Bay Air Base, January 1968.

Used extensively by the US Air Force from 1958 to war’s end, the HH-43 Huskie was the premier base rescue and fire-suppressant aircraft serving in Southeast Asia. Unlike most other helicopters, the Huskie lacks a tail rotor, due to the intermeshed rotor design, which allows the craft to maintain stability even without the ubiquitous tail prop. The lightweight fire suppression kit, weighing only half-a-ton, was able to produce almost 700 gallons of suppressant foam, which, in combination with the downdraft produced by the rotor blades, would often quench fires before ground response teams arrived at the scene. By 1964, many of these craft were stationed at bases at Da Nang and Bien Hoa, as well as at the Nakhon Phanom Royal Air Base in Thailand. Before the introduction of the HH-3, the Huskie was the only rescue helicopter used in Vietnam, and conducted a total of 888 combat rescues between 1966-1970 alone. 

[1] National Museum of the US Air Force. “Kaman HH-43B Huskie,” last modified May 18, 2015.