{"id":2323000,"date":"2026-06-19T17:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/hughes-xh-17-flying-crane-largest-rotor-tip-jet\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T17:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T15:12:13","slug":"hughes-xh-17-flying-crane-largest-rotor-tip-jet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/hughes-xh-17-flying-crane-largest-rotor-tip-jet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Helicopter With the Biggest Rotor Ever Built"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<p>Look closely at the photograph: those are two full-size 1950s automobiles, parked comfortably <em>underneath<\/em> the helicopter. Above them sits a single rotor so vast that each of its two blades weighs as much as a small car and is wide enough to walk along. And it was spun not by gears, but by jets of fire burning at the very tips of the blades.<\/p>\n<p>This was the Hughes XH-17 &mdash; one of the strangest flying machines ever built, and the holder of a record that still stands more than seventy years later.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f4f6f9;border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:8px;padding:18px 22px;margin:24px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.7\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#1565c0\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px\"><li><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Hughes XH-17 &ldquo;Flying Crane&rdquo; &mdash; an experimental heavy-lift research helicopter<\/li><li><strong>Rotor:<\/strong> two blades, 134 ft (41 m) across &mdash; still the largest rotor ever flown<\/li><li><strong>Drive:<\/strong> no main gearbox &mdash; two GE J35 turbojets fed compressed air up the hollow blades to burning tip-jets that spun the rotor<\/li><li><strong>First flight:<\/strong> October 23, 1952, at Culver City, California<\/li><li><strong>The catch:<\/strong> hugely inefficient &mdash; range about 40 miles. Only one was ever built<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Rotor You Could Almost Stand On<\/h2>\n<p>The XH-17&rsquo;s two-blade rotor measured 134 feet from tip to tip &mdash; wider than the wingspan of many airliners &mdash; and no helicopter before or since has flown with a larger one. Each blade weighed around 5,000 pounds, was roughly six feet wide and a foot thick. The whole contraption grossed more than 50,000 pounds, and was famously cobbled together from the parts bin of post-war aviation, borrowing wheels, tanks and pieces from bombers and transports.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1410106931  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:QdXI.c087\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/xh17-featured.jpg\" alt=\"The Hughes XH-17 with two cars parked beneath it\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Two cars and two people fit under the XH-17, giving a sense of the sheer scale of the &ldquo;Flying Crane.&rdquo; (Photo: U.S. Air Force \/ Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Driven by Fire at the Tips<\/h2>\n<p>The cleverest, maddest part was how it turned that enormous rotor. A conventional helicopter uses a heavy gearbox to drive the rotor from the hub, which creates torque that has to be cancelled by a tail rotor. The XH-17 did away with all that. Two General Electric J35 turbojets sat in the fuselage and pumped compressed air up through the hollow blades to the tips, where fuel was injected and ignited. The rotor was, in effect, dragged around by small jet engines at its own wingtips.<\/p>\n<p>Because the drive force was applied at the tips rather than the hub, there was almost no torque to fight &mdash; so the giant needed only a tiny tail rotor. On paper, it was elegant.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/obNlc-3NxEE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why It Never Caught On<\/h2>\n<p>In practice, tip-jets are spectacularly thirsty and almost unbelievably loud &mdash; the XH-17 could reportedly be heard from miles away. That inefficiency was fatal: the prototype could fly barely 40 miles before running dry. Combined with its cumbersome size, that doomed any hope of a production heavy-lifter. Just one XH-17 was ever built, and a planned larger follow-on, the XH-28, was cancelled.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1454941601  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:vrt_.c086\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/hughes-xh-17-flying-crane.jpg\" alt=\"The Hughes XH-17 helicopter\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The XH-17 stood on tall, spindly landing gear so it could straddle and lift bulky cargo &#8211; the &ldquo;flying crane&rdquo; idea in metal. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>And yet the idea behind it never died. The notion of a dedicated &ldquo;sky crane&rdquo; built purely to haul heavy, awkward loads lived on in later, more practical machines. The XH-17 was a glorious dead end &mdash; but it pointed the way.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"display:flex;justify-content:center;margin:2em 0\"><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DZGmYtjqZP6\/\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" style=\"background:#FFF;border:0;border-radius:3px;box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15);margin:1px;max-width:540px;min-width:326px;padding:0;width:99%\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DZGmYtjqZP6\/\" target=\"_blank\">View this post on Instagram<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic\">Sources: Smithsonian Magazine; Simple Flying; Old Machine Press; Wikipedia.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/spruce-goose-hughes-h-4-hercules-only-flight-1947\/\">The Spruce Goose: Hughes&rsquo;s Giant That Flew Once<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/when-samsung-owned-the-worlds-largest-helicopter\/\">When Samsung Owned the World&rsquo;s Largest Helicopter<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Look closely at the photograph: those are two full-size 1950s automobiles, parked comfortably underneath the helicopter. Above them sits a single rotor so vast that each of its two blades weighs as much as a small car and is wide enough to walk along. And it was spun not by gears, but by jets of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":2322913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2323000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hughes XH-17: The Helicopter With the Biggest Rotor Ever<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Hughes XH-17 Flying Crane had a 134-ft rotor - still the largest ever flown - spun by jet-fire at the blade tips. 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