Aircraft Walkthrough: Bering Air MD 500 Helicopter

Published on July 13, 2013 by Aidan Loehr in Aircraft Walkthroughs

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I must admit that despite my interest, helicopters aren’t my strong point (I’ve logged a measly 12 hours in a Bell 47). Therefore I was super excited to have Bering Air pilot Corey Konik walk me through one of their new MD 500s.

The MD 500 started life as a military helicopter: the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse (nicknamed the “Loach” from the acronym LOH—Light Observation Helicopter). A civilian version was marketed as the Hughes 500. The Loach first flew in February 1963. By the end of 1966 it had set numerous helicopter records.

I worked with a pilot who’d flown the Loach in Vietnam, and in his case the “observation” in Light Observation Helicopter meant flying low level to draw ground fire so the gunships would have a target to shoot at. After that duty, I think piloting a C-207 around Western Alaska in crappy weather was his version of retirement. He did say that the Loach was superb!

With a short-diameter rotor system and a matching short tail, the civilian world appreciated the agility, long line capacity, and the 500’s ability to land in a confined space almost as much as the military did. By 1976 the primary model was the 500D, with a bigger engine. “T.C.” on the 1980s TV series Magnum, P.I. flew one of these around Hawaii (Tom Selleck got the Ferrari, not sure who got the better deal). And on Airwolf, two 500Ds armed with rocket pods frequently had a role as the opposing force.

As is typical in aviation, the Hughes helicopters were traded around between companies several times in the past 30 years. The 500 is now officially MD Helicopter’s “MD 500” and it’s still going strong. I’ve seen several around Alaska over the last few years and the two at Bering Air have been buzzing busily around the Seward Peninsula all summer. Kudos to the engineers at Hughes for putting such a good package together.

Fair warning to the fixed wing crowd: you may want to trade in your wheels for a set of skids after watching Corey explain the workings of the 500!

Among other things, you’ll hear about:

The MD 500’s unique seating configuration
Shock dampening on the skids
How helicopter rotor blades work
The advantages of a fully articulated rotor system
Why you should never touch the windows of a helicopter
The MD 500’s fuel usage
The Rolls Royce 250-C20B engine
Checking the oil—no dipstick required!
All about the tail rotor
The benefits and disadvantages of the NOTAR (no tail rotor) version
The instrument panel
How the throttle works
Releasing a sling load

Enjoy the video.

After we shot the aircraft walkthrough video we attached the GoPro to the end of a rotor blade (Corey had seen this done with a Skycrane), and this is the result. Pretty cool.