Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Someone not using his real name (talk | contribs) at 22:04, 24 June 2013 (One of those museum pictures says for OH-6). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "EX-17 Heligun" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The EX-17 Heligun is a two barrel 7.62x51mm NATO calibre machine gun. The weapon is gas-operated and was developed by Hughes Aircraft for use in the OH-6 recon helicopter.

Overview

The Heligun was developed by Hughes Aircraft as part of a complete package for the OV-6 recon helicopter. It offered a number of significant advantages over the Minigun – it was half the weight, self-powered (not electrically driven), and had a mind-boggling 6000RPM firing rate. Ultimately, it was not adopted because the reliability (mean time between stoppages) couldn’t quite be brought up to par, and Army officials decided that it didn’t offer enough improvement over the already adopted M134 Minigun to be worth the switch.

References

1. ^ http://forum.valka.cz/viewtopic.php/title/USA-EX-17-Heligun/p/377959
2. http://www.forgottenweapons.com/ex-17-heligun/
3. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2410848.pdf

This firearms-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• 7.62 mm machine guns
• Aircraft guns
• Multi-barrel machine guns
• Firearm stubs