Flying a Helicopter?

[dmccarty]

....
Funny story. Flying to Tikrit, across open desert, 100ft, fast. I had headgear on and was listening to the crew visiting. Co-Pilot looked over at Pilot and said "powerline". ...

There is a NG unit at RDU airport flying Apaches and Blackhawks. About a decade ago, an Apache was out flying at night and decided to follow one of the local rivers down low and they did not see the power lines. :shocked: Not a good ending on that one.

The NG copters fly over our house frequently. I get up every time to go watch them. Can't help it. One can tell the Blackhawks from the Apaches from the sound. Really cool when there is a bunch of them. :thumbsup: I am not paranoid when I say the Gov'ments Black Copters are flying over our house! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

At the end of the last century, I got on a copter to patrol the Everglades and the coastline of SE FLA. The pilot used to fly copters in Viet Nam. At one point he/we were flying just off the saw grass and I swear I could have reached out and touched it. Which would not have been good since it is named saw grass for a reason and flying that fast would have made touching saw grass a very bad thing. :laughing::laughing::laughing: We went down the coast counting turtles and ended up over the port of Miami and a square rigger was leaving Government Cut. :thumbsup: Awesome to see that from the air. The pilot put us in a VERY tight turn around the ship and we were almost horizontal. That thin little door did not look like it would hold my weight if I fell on it. :shocked: We ended up flying to near where one of the other people on the flight lived and the pilot landed in a field. Power lines to right of us. Power lines to left of us. Power lines to front of us. :shocked: He set the copter down perfectly, the person got off, and we then took off to return to the airfield. I was mighty glad to be clear of those power lines. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[ovrszd]

Yes, that is a great photo. Lots of emotion but you don't know what the emotion is about so it is up to the viewer to decide/think/wonder. :thumbsup:

Later,
Dan

Exactly. The middle guy might just be mad because they are late for chow. But my imagination tends to go the other way.

Here's another.

 

[ovrszd]

Dan, flying across Iraq we often were 100ft or so, which seems much lower when going that fast. In early Spring the Shepards take their herds out into the desert to graze. They didn't much like us flying over them. Almost always scattered their herds.

 

[ovrszd]

The helicopters were equipped with a flare system that would fire if any type of electronic sighting device was pointed at them while inflight. Idea being if fired upon the rocket would track the falling flares. Was very, very common to see this in/around Baghdad.

 

[dickfoster]

Here's a pretty much forgotten chopper, the H73 Huskie.
It had two counter rotating intermeshed rotors so didn't need a tail rotor. A rescue crew flew it down from MacDill daily and they hung out next door to us in the hanger. When things got slow, I often played rescue dummy for them. On an afternoon flight back to MacDill one day lightning struck one of the jesus nuts on one of the rotors which of course took both off and it fell straight down out of the sky killing everyone aboard. I knew everyone of the guys on the flight. I'd hitched rides back and forth to MacDill on that thing many times. It was very leaky, loud and rough riding machine. Fuel and oil were constantly dripping from the overhead. I don't know if Huskies are still in service but my guess is probably not.

 

[ovrszd]

Sorry for the loss of your friends Dick. Great picture. I've never saw one.

I've flown in Huey, Chinook, Blackhawk.

 

[dickfoster]

Sorry for the loss of your friends Dick. Great picture. I've never saw one.

I've flown in Huey, Chinook, Blackhawk.

It was many many years ago. Something like 1969 or so. We all lost a lot of friends in the Military back then.

 

[Redneck in training]

I had job on a platform in the gulf many years back. When the job was finished they call heli to take me back to shore. We were supposed to pick up another guy from another platform but when in flight we got a message that he was not ready and it could take for a while before he finishes his job. Since I was single passenger the pilot said lets's go "sight seeing". We crisscrossed the sea looking for sharks, dolphins, some big fish hunting for shrimps making them jump above water, chased a water spout. It was fun flight flying high then low making crazy turns. I flew many hours in helicopters while working offshore. All flight were by the book except this one.


The heli was German made MBB Bo 105. I think.

While traveling in Colorado for vacation we stopped at Royal Gorge. When we were not far from the bridge a helicopter shot up from the gorge made a vertical U turn over the bridge and went nose down back to the gorge. It crossed my mind that it is going to crash at first moment. It happened very fast and was very loud. I run to the bridge and saw the heli level up just above the water. One guy standing near me said: "It looks crazy. But don't worry. The guys knows what he is doing. He does the same maneuver several time a day."

 

[dfkrug]

The huey has a distinctive sound. Can usually identify them before they are in sight.

Yes, it is very loud and distinctive. You can always tell when they are off to a fire. It has the old
2-blade design. I don't think I have seen a Huey with 4 blades.

Our county sheriff uses a Eurocopter, and I have snagged a ride once about 5 y ago. Very
smooth and civilized.

 

[flyerdan]

Never did get to fly in a copter. When I was growing up in North Idaho, I'd work weekends and summers at the airport, one time a mineral survey team was operating out of there for a couple weeks, they had one of those twin rotor Huskies, dragging what looked like a torpedo. Haven't seen one since.
I've also seen the R-44s at Royal Gorge, they sure know how to work that canyon.