MD530F High Performance Helicopter Overview - The True Sports Car of Helicopters. S6|E5

What's going on my favorite helicopter enthusiasts? I'm super excited because I got a really special one to show you today. What I think, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree, is one of the coolest helicopters in the world. The McDonnell Douglas MD-530F. And this helicopter is truly the sports car of helicopters. And in this video we're gonna do an overview of this helicopter and see why exactly it's earned this reputation. And if you're new here, my name is James Bodie. I'm an aircraft mechanic and travel enthusiast and you are watching Relative Motion. The channel all about showing you the most interesting places in the world and the best means to get you there. And Relative Motion is a new channel. So if you do like this video at any point, I hope you consider subscribing down below because that's the best way to help more videos like this come your way. Here we go. The MD-530F is certainly one of my absolute favorite helicopters. Especially being part of the MD series of helicopters. Which is personally probably my favorite line of helicopters ever made. And while in the MD family of helicopters, there are larger helicopters in this family of helicopters. Like the MD-600 and even the twin-engine MD-900. But since those are almost different helicopters, I would certainly consider the 530 the flagship of what most people would call the MD-500 family. While today they still actually offer three versions of the MD-500 helicopter. There's what they call the MD-500E. There's also the MD-520N. And then of course also there's this helicopter the MD-530F. Now both the MD-500 and the 520 come with smaller engines than the 530. And the crazy part about this is it's not like those two helicopters are underpowered. The MD-530 truly has a giant engine. Especially for the size of the helicopter. It's 650 shaft horsepower. That's over twice as much as similar sized helicopters. Like a Bell 206 or an R66. They both have only around 300 horsepower. And the MD-500 is already known for having a lot of horsepower. With the smaller engine they make now having between 420 and 450 horsepower. So it is pretty crazy to think about the fact the 530 has 650 horsepower. The biggest reason for this large engine is the 530 is what McDonnell Douglas advertised as their high and hot altitude helicopter. Which very simply to make a helicopter good at these conditions, the easiest way to do this is having an overpowered helicopter. Which means it has a ton of available power. And this is a desirable attribute because as either the temperature or the altitude increases, these engines will actually lose power. So to make it possible for this helicopter to land so high, they put in this large helicopter engine for the helicopter's size. So the helicopter is able to maintain enough power to hover at high altitudes. This helicopter can land so high actually, that this helicopter, as far as I know, is able to land at the second highest altitude of any helicopter in the world. You can land this in ground effect at over 14,000 feet and can actually even fly higher. Which is pretty crazy and it's really even getting to the point to having supplemental oxygen wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. And that certainly is pretty crazy to need in a helicopter. Ultimately what this really means to you if you own this helicopter is I think this is a really safe helicopter. Because it has such a powerful engine, there's pretty much always power available for whatever maneuver you want to pull in this helicopter. And not having enough power is certainly a reason the helicopters get in a sticky situations. It's certainly one of the reasons people like turbine engines in helicopters so much. And in particular having such a powerful engine in the 530. And certainly one of the great attributes of the 500 series helicopters is except for the very early ones, they pretty much all have five bladed rotors. Which I would say overall certainly has many advantages. But I'm not gonna go into them fully here. But I do want to glance over them. For starters, typically the larger the engine, the more rotor blades you want. So having these large engines in the 500 helicopters, you're able to extract a lot of power out of the engine with a five bladed rotor system. Also having five rotor blades makes the 500 series helicopter very smooth and stable in the air. For the reason, the more blades there are, the more responsive the helicopter is. Especially getting into turbulence. Another reason this helicopter is great in windy weather, besides being so stable and responsive, is the MD 500 helicopters have a pretty short tail boom. Now just like anything in helicopters, there's pros and cons to this. And I don't want to make this video just about that either. But I do want to touch on this. First, the reason having a shorter tail boom is better for windy weather. It's because the shorter the tail boom, the less susceptible the helicopter is to something called wind cocking. You can think of this similarly to a windsock. And the longer the windsock, the more pressure the wind is gonna exert on that sock, keeping it straight. And where this becomes a problem is if you're not trying to go straight into the wind. Because the wind is gonna try to push you to be straight with the wind. So you'll have to fight against the wind more. And then also, this helicopter having the five bladed rotor. Another advantage to that five bladed rotor, is it's able to keep the rotor diameter much smaller than it would be able to with fewer blades. So having a small rotor diameter, it's nice to have a small tail boom too. Keeping the whole package very small. Being such a powerful helicopter, but in such a small package, certainly has many benefits too. It definitely has even more power than similar helicopters in its class. Like an R-66 or a Bell 206. And having similar weight to these helicopters. An MD-500 is actually more around the size of a Schweitzer 300. Which is a much more lightweight piston helicopter. The other advantage of keeping this helicopter small, is you can get this into much smaller landing zones. Depending on how much space there is wherever you're trying to land. It also makes it easier to find space in a hangar for it. Or wherever you want to keep it too. And the last advantage I'm going to talk about, keeping this helicopter in a small package, is it's really just the icing on the cake. For why this is such a fast and agile helicopter. And it's truly the sports car of helicopters. If you put this helicopter at 90 degrees, it's got to have one of the smallest turning radiuses of any helicopter out there. And while as far as I know, this helicopter actually can't do a barrel roll. But if this helicopter is able to do more than I think it can, I'd love to hear about it down in the comments. But anyways, not being able to do a barrel roll, this still has to be one of the most nimble helicopters there is. Especially if you're flying close to things. And I don't know why, but the first thing that comes to my mind is flying between buildings in a city. But maybe that's because that's what I used to do for fun on Grand Theft Auto. And if you're feeling really crazy, maybe you can slalom through some wind turbines. Like this guy who flies for Red Bull did. So I'll be way more impressed when someone flies a helicopter through some moving wind turbines. And if I was gonna pick a helicopter to do it with, the MD-530F might be that one. Because this helicopter is high-performance, it's also led to be one of the most popular small helicopters in the military. And while you can strap weapons to this thing, that's obviously gonna be for the military only. And I like to focus on stuff more available to civilians. And the odd uses you might be able to use for those. But this is certainly one of the only helicopters I've ever seen with actual external platforms you can put on. Which I'd say really have two main uses. One style they use a lot, they're actually doing utility work with this helicopter. So with the pilot flying the utility worker around, the utility worker is able to work from this platform. Usually on power lines. And because this is such a stable helicopter, the MD-500 helicopters are very popular for this role. The other uses they have for these platforms, which I think is even more crazy, is more for the military like I was just talking about. And that's so they can have four soldiers on the outside. And because this helicopter is such a large engine, it can actually easily carry these people. And while still falling in line with being a sports car, the MD-500 realistically only has four seats inside. However I have to note here, is you actually can fit three people in the cockpit row of this helicopter. However it's gonna be very tight. So realistically this helicopter only holds four people inside. But interestingly with those platforms I just mentioned, if people are willing to sit outside, which obviously more rich and hoity-toity folk are gonna be less interested in doing. But if you're a young adult, you might even think it's more fun hanging on the outside of this helicopter. But either way, as far as I know you can still load this helicopter up with eight people. Four on the inside and four on the outside. And this helicopter is still able to take off with half of its normal fuel load. Which just goes to show you how powerful a helicopter this really is. But these external platforms actually get me to my last crazy idea about this helicopter. That, as far as I know, no one's doing. But since this helicopter is able to land at such high altitudes, it would be another great candidate for a skiing helicopter. And with these outside platforms, would truly almost make this into a flying chairlift. Because I would think four skiers or snowboarders could keep their gear on, strap into the outside of this helicopter, and then have a pilot take you to the top of the mountain. And even more crazy, the pilot might even be able to hover this helicopter a few feet off the ground wherever you're landing. And never even have to touch down. And you can just hop off from the outside and start your descent down the mountain. I appreciate you so much checking out this video about the MD-530F. I hope you've come to agree with me, at least a little bit, that this is a really awesome helicopter. Because there's a lot to talk about in the 500 series of helicopters, I certainly plan on doing more videos and more helicopters in this great line. Especially like the ones they still make. And I had mentioned in this video, like the 500E and the 520N. And also be on the lookout, for when Relative Motion hits a thousand subscribers, I'm planning on doing a live stream. So you can stop by and hang out, and even ask some questions if you want to. I certainly hope to see you there. And until next time, my name is James Bodie, and you've been watching Relative Motion.