>>370643One of Orlando’s most popular conversions was the Twin-Pack, an S-58 modified to run on two gas turbines instead of the more maintenance-intensive radial piston engine. The piston-powered Heli-Camper came in an 800-horsepower model, based on the S-55 transport, and a 1,525-hp model, based on the larger S-58. Because recreation was the goal, only clear-weather navigation equipment was standard. Frank Gilanelli, then a publicist for Winnebago, recalls that during one photography session, the pilot dropped down to read highway road signs for navigation.
Prices ranged from $185,000 to $300,000. Part-timers could rent one for $10,000 per week, plus the cost of pilot and fuel—at 75 gallons per hour.
Before his death in a 1985 airplane crash, Jerry Compton of Richvale, California, relished flying his S-55 Heli-Camper into the Sierra Nevada, says Clark. After passing through other hands, Compton’s machine came to rest at the Valiant Air Command Museum in Titusville, Florida. Today, Winnebago trimmings on N37788 have been replaced by U.S. Air Force livery.
Fred Clark’s son, Brad, runs Vertical Aviation Technologies, which sells a helicopter kit, the Hummingbird (see “Build-it-Yourself Helicopters,” Aug. 2010). At the VAT shop, in Sanford, Brad showed how the seats fold down and the cyclic and collective controls stow to yield a sleeping cabin for two. Clark may offer a foldout screened enclosure for that campground lifestyle.
