Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw — History, Specs & Stories

H-34
Aircraft Museum · Helicopter · H-34

Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw
The S-58, Seahorse and Westland Wessex

Built as a submarine hunter, the S-58 became the last great piston helicopter: France’s gunship in Algeria, the Marines’ workhorse in early Vietnam, the presidents’ first helicopter and, with turbines, Britain’s Wessex.

1954First flight
2,300+Built, incl. licence production
25+Countries
16Troops carried
Photo: Alan Wilson from Weston, Spalding, Lincs, UK / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
RoleAnti-submarine, assault transport, rescue and VIP helicopterEra1955 to 2003 (Wessex)EngineWright R-1820-84 nine-cylinder radial, 1,525 hp; Napier Gazelle or twin Gnome turboshafts in the WessexOriginUSA / France / UK · Sikorsky; Sud-Aviation, WestlandStatusRetired from military serviceWant to fly a real military jet?

The Story

The H-34: how a Navy submarine hunter became everybody’s helicopter

Sikorsky began the S-58 with its own money as a successor to the S-55: twice as powerful, much more streamlined and with a four-blade rotor that allowed higher speed with less vibration. At first neither target customer wanted it. The Navy chose a Bell design for anti-submarine work and the Marines preferred the giant S-56. When both programmes ran into trouble, the two services came back, and the Navy contracted for the HSS-1 Seabat in June 1952. The prototype flew at Bridgeport on 8 March 1954, the first production aircraft on 20 September, and the Seabat entered service in August 1955. With a dipping sonar, a Doppler navigator and an automatic stabilisation system that held a hover over the sonar without the pilot, it made night anti-submarine helicopter work possible. The Army ordered the H-34 Choctaw and the Marines the HUS-1 Seahorse.

The nose-mounted Wright R-1820 radial, conventional tailwheel undercarriage and folding rotor and tail made the S-58 at home on carriers and in the field. It carried 16 troops or a heavy sling load, and in July 1956 it set a speed record of 141.9 mph over a 100 km closed course. France bought it in quantity for the war in Algeria, where the Armée de l’Air used 215 and armed some with a cannon and machine guns firing from the doors. The Marines took their UH-34Ds to Vietnam in 1962 with HMM-362, and for the next four years they carried the early war: assaults, resupply, medical evacuation and rescue. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy travelled in VH-34s, and a Marine HUS crew hoisted Alan Shepard from the Atlantic in 1961.

Sikorsky built about 1,800 S-58s before production ended in January 1970, and close to 600 more were made under licence in France, Britain and Italy, taking the total past 2,300. In Britain Westland chose to rebuild the design around turbine power: the Wessex HAS.1 flew on 20 June 1958 with a Napier Gazelle, and the twin-Gnome HC.2 entered RAF service in January 1964. The Wessex fought in Borneo and the Falklands, flew over Northern Ireland for decades, carried the Royal Family from 1969 to 1998 and left RAF service only in 2003. Sikorsky’s own S-58T Twin-Pac conversion kept others flying long after the radial had become a museum piece.

Too late for Korea and too old for the jet age, the S-58 still carried the first years of the helicopter war in Vietnam.The last great piston — Marines called it the Huss
01The H-34 in Algeria and Vietnam: the first helicopter wars

The war of independence in Algeria pushed France to expand its helicopter force fast. With no heavy-lift helicopter of its own, it imported close to a hundred H-34s from the United States, and Sud-Aviation then assembled or built 180 more at Marignane between 1957 and 1962, its first helicopter production line. The Armée de l’Air used 215 H-34As from 1956 to the late 1970s. In Algeria they carried 16 to 18 equipped soldiers, evacuated the wounded and lifted loads of up to 2,260 kg on a four-point sling, and some were armed with a cannon and machine guns firing through the door and windows, making them early helicopter gunships.

In Vietnam the Marine Corps arrived with the HUS, now the UH-34D, in 1962, when HMM-362 deployed. The Corps had bought it only as a stop-gap while it waited for a true assault helicopter, but it became the work-horse for troop lift, cargo and medical evacuation. Its engine, low in the nose, gave the crew some protection and could get the helicopter out of a hot landing zone even after heavy damage. Crews added door guns, armour and flak vests, because the high cockpit drew much of the fire on landing. The turbine CH-46 began to replace it in 1966, but the UH-34D returned to prominence in late 1967 when the CH-46 fleet was grounded for structural modifications. Marines turned its nickname, Huss, into slang for doing a buddy a favour.

02The H-34 as the Westland Wessex: turbines, royals and the Falklands

Westland’s licence allowed it to build the S-58, but it chose to re-engine it. The first Wessex HAS.1 flew on 20 June 1958 with a 1,450 hp Napier Gazelle turboshaft and entered Royal Navy anti-submarine service in 1961. The improved HAS.3, with radar in a dorsal radome and a 1,600 hp Gazelle, followed in 1967. For the RAF and the Royal Marines Westland produced versions with two coupled Bristol Siddeley Gnome turboshafts: the HC.2, which first flew in January 1962 and entered service with No. 18 Squadron at Odiham in January 1964, and the Navy’s commando HU.5. The HC.2 could carry 16 troops or a 4,000 lb underslung load such as a 105 mm pack howitzer, and could be armed with SS.11 missiles and machine guns.

Wessex helicopters carried troops in the Borneo confrontation, supported UN forces in Cyprus and became a familiar sight over Northern Ireland. In the 1982 Falklands War about 55 HU.5s took part. Two crashed on the Fortuna Glacier on South Georgia in a snowstorm while recovering special forces, six were lost when the Atlantic Conveyor sank, and a HAS.3 was destroyed aboard HMS Glamorgan when an Exocet struck. From 1976 converted HAR.2s flew search and rescue for No. 22 Squadron, and the last RAF Wessex, HC.2s in Cyprus, retired in 2003.

Design & Engineering

What makes the H-34 special

01

Four blades and a tailwheel

Sikorsky chose a four-blade, 56 ft main rotor for lower blade loading than the S-55’s three blades, so the S-58 could fly faster before blade stall and with less vibration. Main and tail blades used the NACA 0012 profile. A tailwheel undercarriage shrank the turning radius on deck and made the tail wheel, not the tail rotor, the first thing to touch in a quick stop. The rotor folded by hand and the tail pylon swung round so the helicopter fitted carrier lifts.

02

A hover the pilot did not have to fly

The Navy’s SH-34J combined a dipping AN/AQS-4 or -5 sonar with a Doppler navigator and Automatic Stabilisation Equipment, an early helicopter autopilot that could hold the aircraft in a hover over the sonar transducer without the pilot’s hands. That made anti-submarine missions possible at night and in poor visibility, a large step for the time. Weapons were two torpedoes, two mines or two depth charges. In 1956 a similar automatic stabilisation system was tried on the S-58 to stop heavy sling loads from swinging.

03

Magnesium and its price

To save weight, parts of the all-metal fuselage were skinned in magnesium alloy. It worked, but corrosion and the fire hazard experienced on some S-58 models persuaded Sikorsky not to use magnesium for airframe parts on later types. The nose-mounted R-1820, reached through clamshell doors, gave full power only up to about 700 ft; the S-58T’s Pratt & Whitney Canada Twin-Pac turbines delivered the same power up to 6,000 ft and added twin-engine safety, which is why surviving civil S-58s were so often converted.

03The H-34’s variants: Seabat, Seahorse, Choctaw and Wessex
  • XHSS-1: four prototypes, first flight 8 March 1954.
  • HSS-1 / SH-34G Seabat: Navy anti-submarine; HSS-1N / SH-34J night-capable with automatic hover; UH-34J utility conversions.
  • HUS-1 / UH-34D Seahorse: Marine assault transport; HUS-1A / UH-34E with flotation gear; HUS-1L / LH-34D winterised for Antarctica; HUS-1Z / VH-34D executive transports.
  • H-34A / CH-34A Choctaw: Army troop transport; CH-34C improved model; VH-34C VIP transport.
  • HH-34F and HH-34J: Coast Guard and Air Force search and rescue.
  • S-58A, C and D: commercial cargo and airline versions; S-58T Twin-Pac turbine conversion, FAA approved 1971.
  • Sud-Aviation S-58 / H-34: French assembly and licence production for the navy, air force and army, and for Belgium.
  • Westland Wessex: HAS.1 and HAS.3 (Napier Gazelle), HC.2, HCC.4, HU.5 and HAR.2 (twin Gnome), plus Australian and export versions.
Technical Data

Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse specifications

Specifications

Crew
2
Capacity
16 troops, or 6 stretchers and a medical attendant
Main rotor diameter
56 ft (17.07 m)
Fuselage length
46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Height
15 ft 11 in (4.85 m)
Empty weight
7,900 lb (3,583 kg)
Max take-off weight
14,000 lb (6,350 kg)
Powerplant
1 × Wright R-1820-84 nine-cylinder radial, 1,525 hp (1,137 kW)
Maximum speed
122 mph (196 km/h)
Cruise speed
97 mph (156 km/h)
Range
215 mi (346 km)
Service ceiling
9,500 ft (2,896 m)
Climb rate
1,100 ft/min (335 m/min)
Armament
Door guns and rockets added in Algeria and Vietnam; SH-34J two torpedoes, mines or depth charges

Costs & production

Cost per flight hour
No official figure is available. A hedged modern estimate for a privately operated radial-engined S-58 is several thousand US dollars per hour, dominated by the fuel burn and overhaul cost of a 1,525 hp R-1820; it is an estimate, not an operator figure
Production
About 1,800 by Sikorsky to January 1970 and close to 600 under licence in France, Britain and Italy; Westland built 356 Wessex according to the Sikorsky Archives
Programme
Navy contract June 1952; first flight 8 March 1954; Army order 1955; Marine HUS-1 service 1957; last RAF Wessex retired 2003
04The H-34’s operating costs: why the turbines took over

The S-58’s Wright R-1820 was a proven, rugged engine, but it was a big, thirsty radial that lost power quickly with height and heat: Sikorsky notes it delivered maximum power only up to about 700 ft. That limited payload in exactly the hot and high places where the helicopter was most needed, from Algeria to the Central Highlands of Vietnam, and every hour meant aviation petrol and engine wear.

Turbines changed the economics. Westland’s Wessex was designed from the start around a turboshaft, and in 1970 Sikorsky set up a line to remanufacture S-58s as the twin-turbine S-58T, which held its power to 6,000 ft and could continue at maximum weight on one engine up to 5,000 ft. No military operator published a cost per flight hour for the piston H-34, so the table gives a hedged estimate only.

Timeline

The H-34 from submarine hunter to the last Wessex

1952

Navy contract

The Navy orders the HSS-1 Seabat anti-submarine helicopter in June.

1954

First flight

The XHSS-1 flies at Bridgeport on 8 March; the first production aircraft follows on 20 September.

1956

Records and Algeria

An S-58 sets a 100 km closed-circuit speed record of 141.9 mph on 12 July; French H-34s begin service.

1958

Wessex flies

Westland’s turbine Wessex HAS.1 first flies on 20 June.

1961

Mercury

A Marine crew recovers Alan Shepard in May; in July the waterlogged Liberty Bell 7 capsule proves too heavy to lift and sinks.

1962

Vietnam

HMM-362 takes the UH-34D to Vietnam.

1965

Yankee Papa 13

Larry Burrows photographs a UH-34D crew’s deadly mission of 31 March for LIFE.

1969

Royal Wessex

The Queen’s Flight Wessex HCC.4 makes its first official flight on 1 July, for the Investiture at Caernarfon.

1970

Production ends

Sikorsky ends S-58 production in January and launches the S-58T turbine conversion.

1973

Last Marine flight

The final Marine Corps UH-34 flight takes place.

1982

Falklands

Wessex helicopters fight in the South Atlantic; nine are lost.

2003

Last Wessex

The RAF retires its last Wessex HC.2s in Cyprus.

Stories & Eyewitnesses

Stories & eyewitnesses: the H-34 from Algeria to the Falklands

Combat

One ride with Yankee Papa 13

A LIFE photographer flew a Marine assault that went badly wrong.

Read the full story
On 31 March 1965 the British photographer Larry Burrows rode in a Marine UH-34D, Yankee Papa 13, crewed by 21-year-old crew chief James Farley and gunner Wayne Hoilien, with Capt. Peter Vogel at the controls. The Viet Cong were waiting at the landing zone. When the pilot spotted Yankee Papa 3 down with its rotors still turning, he landed beside it under fire. Farley ran to it, found the pilot apparently dead and brought back the wounded gunner; the co-pilot, Lt. James Magel, died aboard YP13 despite Farley’s efforts. LIFE ran the essay as a cover story on 16 April 1965.
Combat

Operation Starlite, Landing Zone Blue

A UH-34D that served in Vietnam for almost five years.

Read the full story
UH-34D BuNo 150570 served in Vietnam almost continuously from July 1964 to May 1969, including three tours with HMM-361. On 18 August 1965 it took part in Operation Starlite, the first major battle between the Marines and the Viet Cong, inserting Marines into Landing Zone Blue, which turned out to lie inside the perimeter of a Viet Cong battalion. Decades later a squadron veterans’ association found the hulk in an Arizona salvage yard, restored it with more than 40,000 hours of work and flew it again on 13 November 2005. It now hangs in the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Combat

The gunships of Algeria

France armed its H-34s and built its own.

Read the full story
France’s Armée de l’Air used 215 H-34As between 1956 and the late 1970s, and they became the backbone of troop assault and supply in the Algerian War. Besides carrying 16 to 18 soldiers and evacuating wounded, some were armed with a cannon and machine guns firing from the door and windows. The Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace’s example, the first H-34 built entirely in France, left Marignane on 11 September 1959 and joined Escadre d’Hélicoptères No. 2 at Oran in October. After the war it flew trials at Istres and arrived at the museum by air in 1978.
Space

Shepard comes home, Liberty Bell 7 does not

The H-34 could just lift a Mercury capsule.

Read the full story
On 5 May 1961 a Marine HUS-1 crew found Alan Shepard, the first American in space, after his splashdown and delivered him and his capsule to the carrier. Its lift was only just sufficient for a Mercury spacecraft. In July 1961, after Gus Grissom’s flight, the hatch of Liberty Bell 7 blew early and the capsule filled with seawater. The extra weight was too much for the helicopter, and the crew had to release it. Liberty Bell 7 sank in deep water and stayed on the ocean floor until 1999.
People

Army One

The first presidential helicopters were H-34s.

Read the full story
Sikorsky records that Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy were both carried in VH-34 executive helicopters, flown by the Army and the Marine Corps with plush interiors, extra soundproofing and air conditioning. A small fleet served from 1958 to 1961 under the call sign Army One. The Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson preserves one of the Army’s presidential VH-34Cs, serial 57-1684, and the Marines operated their own HUS-1Z executive conversions, later designated VH-34D, with the VX-1 executive flight detachment.
Polar

Taro and Jiro

A Japanese S-58 flew in the Antarctic when two sled dogs were found alive.

Read the full story
Japan took an S-58, registered JA7201, on its Antarctic Research Expeditions from 1959 to 1962, and it is credited with a part in one of Japan’s best-loved animal stories, the return of Taro and Jiro, two sled dogs famous for surviving after an earlier expedition had been forced to leave them behind. JA7201, long displayed at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, is preserved today at the Hirosawa City theme park in Chikusei.
People

The Queen’s Wessex

Red and blue helicopters carried the Royal Family for almost thirty years.

Read the full story
In 1968 Westland received an order for two Wessex for The Queen’s Flight, designated HCC.4: HC.2s with VIP furnishings, soundproofing, a folding step and extra Decca navigation equipment. The first flew on 17 March 1969, and the first official task, on 1 July 1969, supported the Investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. In their red and dark blue scheme they flew from RAF Benson and, from 1995, Northolt with No. 32 (The Royal) Squadron, until retirement in 1998. HCC.4 XV732 is displayed at the RAF Museum in London.
Combat

Fortuna Glacier

Two Wessex were lost recovering special forces in a South Georgia blizzard.

Read the full story
On 22 April 1982, early in the Falklands War, Wessex helicopters were sent to extract SAS troops from the Fortuna Glacier on South Georgia, during the operation to retake the island. In a snowstorm two Wessex HU.5s crashed on the glacier. Over the following weeks about 55 HU.5s served in the campaign, landing troops on East Falkland on 21 May; six more were lost when the Atlantic Conveyor was sunk, and a HAS.3 was destroyed aboard HMS Glamorgan by an Exocet. In all nine Wessex were lost.
Rescue

Yellow Wessex on the coast

From 1976 RAF Wessex took over search and rescue from the Whirlwind.

Read the full story
From 1976 twelve RAF Wessex HC.2s converted to HAR.2 standard, with a winch above the starboard door and high-visibility yellow paint, flew search and rescue for detached flights of No. 22 Squadron around the British coast, replacing the Whirlwind. HC.2s, meanwhile, became a fixture of anti-terrorist operations in Northern Ireland, where helicopters were safer than road convoys. The type’s long RAF career ended in Cyprus in 2003, almost four decades after No. 18 Squadron first took the HC.2 to Odiham. The RAF Museum at Cosford displays HC.2 XR525.
Survivor

Seahorses on show

Dozens of H-34s survive, a few still flying.

Read the full story
Survivors are widespread. Besides BuNo 150570 at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, the Connecticut Air & Space Center is restoring UH-34D 147173, and the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace at Le Bourget shows its French-built H-34A in the helicopter hall. Others stand in museums in Germany, Indonesia, Thailand and Chile, and in Britain a Wessex HU.5, XT761, returned to flight with Historic Helicopters in 2019 after a long restoration.
Gallery

The H-34 in pictures

H-34
H-34Photo: LP98 / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
H-34
H-34Photo: Clemens Vasters from Viersen, Germany, Germany / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
H-34
H-34Photo: AlfvanBeem / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
Operations

Where the H-34 flies and flew

Service Record

The H-34’s record

The H-34 flew in Algeria, Lebanon in 1958, early Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and the Israeli wars of the 1960s, and as the Wessex in Borneo, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and the Falklands. Figures below are from the National Museum of the Marine Corps and published service histories.

215H-34As used by the French Armée de l’Air, mainly in Algeria
5 yearsUH-34D 150570 in Vietnam, July 1964 to May 1969
9Wessex lost in the 1982 Falklands War

See how training and combat types compare in the military aircraft statistics database. Figures are approximate.

Questions & Answers

Everything people ask about the H-34

Can I fly in a Sikorsky H-34 Choctaw?
MiGFlug does not offer flights in the H-34 or Wessex, but you can fly several genuine military jets today, from the L-39 Albatros to the MiG-21, see MiGFlug’s jet flights.
Is the H-34 the same as the S-58?
Yes. S-58 was Sikorsky’s model number; the Army called it the H-34 Choctaw, the Navy the HSS Seabat and the Marines the HUS Seahorse until all became H-34 variants in 1962.
Is the Westland Wessex an H-34?
The Wessex was Westland’s licence-built S-58 airframe redesigned around turbine engines, first a Napier Gazelle and later twin Gnomes.
How many H-34s were built?
About 1,800 by Sikorsky and close to 600 under licence, so more than 2,300 in all.
Did the H-34 fight in Vietnam?
Yes. Marine UH-34Ds deployed in 1962 and carried much of the Corps’ helicopter war until the CH-46 replaced them; South Vietnam also flew H-34s.
Did a president fly in an H-34?
Yes. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy were carried in VH-34 executive helicopters.
When was the H-34 retired?
The Marine Corps flew its last UH-34 in 1973; the last RAF Wessex retired in 2003.
The part of the museum you can fly

You can’t fly the H-34.
These, you can.

Most of this museum you can only look at. These genuine military jets you can fly yourself with MiGFlug — with aerobatics and time on the controls.

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Related Aircraft

Continue the tour

The RivalBell UH-1 Iroquois “Huey”The turbine helicopter that took over the troop-lift war in Vietnam from the piston H-34.Read the Bell UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” storyThe DescendantSikorsky UH-60 Black HawkSikorsky’s modern utility helicopter, heir to the S-58’s place in Army and Navy service.Read the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk storyThe CounterpartMil Mi-8 / Mi-17 HipThe Soviet turbine transport that, like the Wessex, replaced a radial-engined helicopter of the S-58 class.Read the Mil Mi-8 / Mi-17 Hip story
Sources & Further Reading

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