The Bell 61 was the only tandem rotor type designed by Bell. it was developed as an anti-submarine warfare helicopter for the US Navy. First flew on March 3, 1953. Two prototypes
XHSL-1 were built plus one ground test vehicle. Urgent needs made the Navy assigned 234 Bureau Numbers and signed a contract for the first 160 including 18 for the
Royal Navy. Performance and production issues forced that only 50
HSL-1 were built. The HO4S (
Sikorsky S-55), which the HSL-1 had been intended to replace remained in service until the introduction of the HSS-1 (
S-58). Only a few were delivered to the US Navy and used for test purpose only. Proposed civil variants models
D-116,
D-216 and
D-238 they did not go beyond the planning phase
Ambitious order book from the
US Navy was scaled back by cancellation of some contracts.
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