Got my first ride in one when I was 10 years old in Brooklin, Maine. I knew one of the original investors in the Helio company and met Lynn Bollinger many years ago when I was just a kid. Another shows the speaker configuration, so perhaps that would be the D model? I'm finding information about these little planes and their 'secret mission' is pretty hard to come by. I have several of his photos of the aircraft, including one that shows the tail number 62-5907A. I believe my father was the crew chief on a Helio U10 Super Courier used for psy-ops. The U10's, some had speakers and others dropped lieflets and also returned injured, many had to be washed out with water to fly agin. worked on all of the TWA aircraft (teny winie airplanes) as we called them U10's and O1's. To Terri Barnes, I was at Bien Hoa 64 /65 I was a radio tech.

Another great mission with 8 months in Korea and out of Vietnam I went with planes and instructed Korean Pilots in all SAW functions of the aircraft. All The U10B had wings removed and flown to Korea and given to Korean Air Force. Great flight and spent a week in Thailand. In Oct 69 all of the U10D from our base and Bien Hoa went to Thailand and turned over to the Thai Air Force. It did have the highest accident rate in the USAF and was twice that of the F105.įlew the U10B and D out of Bien Thuy in 1969. I think I was the only one in the outfit not to ground loop. It was a delight to fly and my first real tailwheel experireince.

USAF Super Couriers were produced in three versions: the U-10A standard version with a Lycoming GO-480-G1D6 engine and 227 litres of fuel the U-10B long-range version with twice the internal fuel capacity and paratroop doors as standard and the U-10D inproved long-range version, with provision for an aerial camera and sound broadcasting equipment.

Production deliveries of the Trigear Courier began in 1974. The prototype H-295 flew for the first time on 24 February 1965. The final commercial versions of the Courier to be produced were the Super Courier Model H-295 with a non-retractable tailwheel landing gear and the Trigear Courier Model HT-295 with a non-retractable tricycle-type landing gear. Further substantial orders were received subsequently, some aircraft being assigned to Tactical Air Command for counter-insurgency duties. Three were supplied to the USAF for evaluation, under the designation L-28A. The original H-395 and H-395A versions of the Super Courier six-seat light STOL personal, corporate and utility monoplane appeared from 1958. The latter was generally similar to the Super Courier, except for having a 186.3kW Lycoming O-540-A1A5 flat-six engine. The improved five-seat H-391B Courier was followed by the H-392 Strato Courier, intended mainly for high-altitude photographic work, and the six-seat Courier Model H-250 of 1964. The Helioplane Four or Courier prototype was derived from the Koppen-Bollinger two-seat lightplane (an extensively rebuilt Piper Vagabond, first flown in 1949) and production aircraft appeared in 1954.

Helio super courier