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I saw on YouTube a helicopter carrying an airplane.

Is this possible, I mean is the maximum load compatible with the mass of this aircraft?

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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makarisel
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    Related: http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/14334/are-there-items-bigger-than-an-aircraft-section-transported-by-air-today/14339#14339 – Peter Kämpf Jan 01 '17 at 21:40
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    So you claim that every video and photo of a helicopter lifting an aircraft is a fake? – jwenting Jan 02 '17 at 07:01
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    "Here is video evidence of thing X. Is X possible?" Um – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 02 '17 at 15:28
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    Begs the question if a large airplane can carry a helicopter – Délisson Junio Jan 03 '17 at 00:48
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    @wingleader Sure: a C-5 Galaxy can carry six Apaches, according to Wikipedia. (Pet peeve: you mean that it raises the question; to beg the question is to assume the answer. For example, asking whether a helicopter can carry a plane begs the question of whether helicopters even exist, since the question makes no sense without assuming that helicopters exist.) – David Richerby Jan 03 '17 at 01:08
  • This airplane carries about 80 passengers, so it's actually quite small plane, compared to B747 with 400 people. And in general "can X carry Y" the answer is always "Yes, provided sufficiently big X paired with sufficiently small Y". – Agent_L Jan 03 '17 at 15:12
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    One african swallow powered by two Pratt & Whitney JFTD12-5A, can easily carry one 15 ton coconut. – user721108 Nov 17 '17 at 11:51

4 Answers4

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If you look more closely, this "airplane" is only the husk of a Tupolev Tu-134, a rather small airliner, and the helicopter is a Mil-26, the heaviest helicopter ever to go into production. Not only are the empennage and the outer wings missing, but also the engines, which helps to reduce the load considerably.

Mil-26 lifting a Tu-134 carcass, seen from below

Mil-26 lifting a Tu-134 carcass, seen from below (source)

The empty weight of a flightworthy Tu-134 is 28 tons, but the engines alone weigh 2.3 tons each. Now remove the outer wing, empennage and cabin interior, and the remaining weight is within the 20 ton load limit of the Mil-26.

Peter Kämpf
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    I guess "Very powerful heavy lift helicopter lifting half of a stripped down actually-not-that-big airplane" just doesn't have that ring to it … – Jörg W Mittag Jan 02 '17 at 22:40
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One of the purposes of the Sikorsky CH-54 was to transport aircraft.

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Carrying a Chinook:

Lifting a Caribou:

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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In Vietnam it was pretty common to remove crashed aircraft from the jungle using helicopters.

http://www.angelfire.com/mo/242sdASHC/213th.html gives a first hand account of a crewman flying quite a few of these dangerous missions.

http://www.combatreform.org/CH53AliftsA1andA4.jpg shows an A-1 and an A-4 being lifted by CH-53s, but larger aircraft like F-4s and F-105s were similarly airlifted out of the jungle to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

jwenting
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As said, the aircraft is tripped of heavy equipment. The airframe itself is as light as possible to maximize cargo carrying capacity. And on separate note the video title is a bit provocative. The airliner is not big and even so it isn't in operational condition. Not really #MindBlown as the title proclaims.

This is all within limits of the helicopter's capacity, but we don't see such deliveries quite often. Think about carrying such cargo in strong winds. Road/rail/sea transport of airframes is still preferable to helicopter transport when safety is a concern. And when dismantling aircraft it's a good practice to use boneyards where everything from storage to scrapping is done so that there is no need to transport airframes around.