(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



The history of the Helihome, a flying camper from the 1970s [1]

['Gareth Branwyn']

Date: 2022-07-25  

On Calum Gillies' YouTube channel, he tells the fascinating story behind the Helihome, a flying Winnebago camper featured on the cover of a 1977 Popular Mechanics magazine. What looked like just another fanciful techno-utopian fantasy the magazine often trades in turned out to be an actual product. Sort of. Several Helihomes were sold for business purposes, but only one of them was ever sold as a flying camper (at $300,000 in late 70s dollars).

There were two models available, both built from former military helicopters, the Sikorsky S-55 and S-58 models, used in Vietnam. Like a concept car, the Helihome was really a publicity vehicle, designed to get Winnebago a lot of attention, which it did.

Thumbnail image: Inset of Popular Mechanics cover, Sept. 1977

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2022/07/25/the-history-of-the-helihome-a-flying-camper-from-the-1970s.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/