The Sioux is a three-seat observation and basic training helicopter. In 1953 the Bell 47G design was introduced. It can be recognized by the full "soap bubble" canopy (as its designer Arthur M. Young termed it), exposed welded-tube tail boom, saddle fuel tanks and skid landing gear. In its UH-13J version, based on the Bell 47J, it had a metal-clad tail boom and fuselage and an enclosed cockpit and cabin.
The H-13 and its military variants were often equipped with medical evacuation panniers, one to each skid, with an acrylic glass shield to protect the patient from wind.
A single 260 hp Lycoming VO-435 piston engine was fitted to the 47G variant. Fuel was fed from two high-mounted external tanks. A single two-bladed rotor with short inertial stabilising minor blades was used on the Sioux.
An American single-rotor utility and training helicopter designed and built by Bell Aircraft Corporation/Bell Helicopter Company from 1945 to 1973
First helicopter certified for civil use and first commercial helicopter to go into service
More than 6,400 were produced by Bell and its licensees around the world
Employed in Canada as early as 1947 by Canada's Photographic Survey Corporation and Carl Agar's Okanagan Air Service
Became the first helicopter operated by the Royal Canadian Navy, in August 1951
This aircraft is called Sioux by RCAF; RCN referred to it as HTL
Canadian Aviation and Space Museum