Firestone XR-9

XR-9
Role	Utility helicopter
Manufacturer	Firestone Aircraft Company
First flight	March 1946
Primary user	United States Army Air Forces
Number built	2

The Firestone XR-9, also known by the company designation Model 45, was a 1940s American experimental helicopter built by the Firestone Aircraft Company for the United States Army Air Forces. Only two (the military XR-9B and one civil example) were built.

Originally developed by G & A Aircraft with the co-operation of the United States Army Air Forces' Air Technical Service Command, the G & A Model 45B (designated XR-9 Rotocycle by the Army) was a design for a single-seat helicopter of pod-and-boom configuration. It had a fixed tri-cycle landing gear and three-bladed main and tail rotors. Power would have been supplied by a 126 hp (94 kW) Avco Lycoming XO-290-5 engine. The Model 45C (XR-9A) was the same helicopter with a two-bladed rotor. Neither of the two helicopters were built. G & A Aircraft was purchased by Firestone in 1943, and was renamed the Firestone Aircraft Company in 1946.

A revised two-seat design the revised Model 45C (or XR-9B) was built with a three-bladed main rotor and two-seat in tandem. The first aircraft procured by the Army Air Forces in 1946, it was powered by an Avco Lycoming O-290-7 engine and first flew in March of that year.

A civil version, the Model 45D was also built and flown, in anticipation of a postwar boom in aircraft sales. This differed in having the two occupants side-by-side instead of Tandem as in the 45C, and was equipped with a 150 horsepower (110 kW) Lycoming engine. The prototype was demonstrated at the 1946 Cleveland National Air Races. A four-seat Model 50, with twin tail rotors, was also projected, but the predicted sales boom did not materialise, and Firestone closed its aircraft manufacturing division.

The sole Model 45D is in non-display storage at the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama. It is painted as an XR-9 46-001.

Data from The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985)

General characteristics

Performance

...
Wikipedia