Aerial Crane Lifting Helicopter — Handmade Metal Model, 1:21

A skycrane — the helicopter built as a flying chassis with almost nothing between the cockpit and the tail.

Handcrafted at 1:21 in iron with metal rotors and hand-painted finish, with the exposed spine, high-set engines and long-legged undercarriage of a heavy-lift crane helicopter.

Details

• 1:21 scale, handcrafted iron construction
• Metal main and tail rotors
• Hand-painted with applied detail
• Exposed spine, cockpit and tall undercarriage detail
• Ready to display

The type

A crane helicopter has no fuselage in the usual sense because it does not carry anything internally. Everything hangs underneath, which lets it lift loads that would not fit inside any aircraft — bridge sections, air conditioning plant, other helicopters, entire houses.

Some are flown with a rear-facing third seat so a pilot can turn around and watch the load directly while positioning it. Civil versions fight fires, drop transmission towers onto mountainsides and recover crashed aircraft.