Hiller Air Tug

The Hiller Air Tug was a proposal sent to NASA in 1965 for an extremely large super heavy lift helicopter.

The concept was breath taking in its ambition. The Air Tug would fly over a thousand miles and loiter in the recovery area. The S-IC booster having been modified to include parachutes and slings would glide down on a specific trajectory. The helicopter would match descent profiles and catch the hook in the uppermost parachute. The engineers at Hiller Aircraft Advanced Planning & Research Division had calculated 3 catch attempts would be possible.

The enormous booster would then be winched up to the helicopter and secured for the thousand mile flight back to the launch site where the booster would be lowered into a special landing cradle to avoid damage during landing.