Word.ws English Dictionary

skycrane

skycrane noun: a helicopter that is used for hauling large loads.

skycrane: a helicopter that is used for hauling large loads
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

skycrane (plural skycranes)

  1. A helicopter that is used for hauling large loads.
    • The SHEDS exercise, conducted by American Export Isbrandtsen and Sikorsky in 1967, demonstrated that skycranes can unload containers, within the load limits of the helicopters, from a ship’s deck in weather which makes surface operations impossible.1970 March, Frank B. Case, “Contingencies, Container Ships, and Lighterage”, in Army Logistician, volume 2, page 21
    • Bad weather, damaged multileg slings, and limited weekend availability for National Guard skycranes caused planning problems.1984, Thomas A. York, “Construction and Maintenance of Delta Creek Airstrip”, in Engineer, volume 14, number 4, page 35

Examples of skycrane in a sentence

  • For the cost of those exploits, Bass could easily rent a couple of skycranes and airlift Hueco Tank’s famous Mushroom Boulder to Louisiana.1999, John Sherman, Sherman Exposed: Slightly Censored Climbing Stories, The Mountaineers Books:
  • Only two skycranes came in hauling tractors and we aren’t allowed to get rides on them.2016, Conrad M. Leighton, War Stories: A GI Reporter in Vietnam, 1970-1971, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 292:
  • As the [Perseverance Rover] descent stage levels out and slows to its final descent speed of about 1.7 miles per hour (2.7 kilometers per hour), it initiates the “skycrane” maneuver.2020, NASA, Entry, Descent, and Landing:

Forms of skycrane

pluralskycranes

Origin of skycrane

From sky + crane.

Questions about skycrane

What does skycrane mean?
Skycrane means a helicopter that is used for hauling large loads.
How do you use skycrane in a sentence?
For the cost of those exploits, Bass could easily rent a couple of skycranes and airlift Hueco Tank’s famous Mushroom Boulder to Louisiana.
What part of speech is skycrane?
Skycrane is a noun.
What is the plural of skycrane?
The plural of skycrane is skycranes.

Words near skycrane in the dictionary

  1. skycloth
  2. skycloths
  3. skycoach
  4. skycoaches
  5. skycraft
  6. skycrane
  7. skycranes
  8. skycycle
  9. skycycles
  10. skydaddies
  11. skydaddy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skycrane (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “skycrane.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skycrane. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.