Question:
Larry I probably watched you fly over with the sling loaded. I was there in 67-68 most of my time was around Chu Chi, Long Benh, and Ben Wha. I left Siagon just two days before TET 1968 to come home. Got home and watched on TV places being blown up in Siagon that I had been at two days before. Jerry (also wondering where the time has gone) Springer
It just slipped by, one day at a time. Bob Reed www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site) KIS Cruiser in progress…Slow but steady progress…. "Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice, pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!" (M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)
Response:
As he said lets start a war.:) I did not think that highway looked like the ones I remember in Vietnam in 1967 and 68. Jerry
Jerry: Did the Vietnamese ever paint centerlines? I think that highway is either in Mass. or in Wisconsin. I forget…it’s been too long. See my post below. I know I didn’t fool you older coots. I was pulling the legs of the younger bucks. BWB
Response:
Here’s a shot just north of An Loc, north of Siagon in 1971 flying the hwy just inside the Cambodian Border.
Same shot is on your website…. http://www.angelfire.com/nv/rvpilot/Helicopter.html Caption reads: A shot going from Sprinfield Mass over to Albany New York in the summer of 1973. I’m flying in the left seat most of the time while everyone else sleeps although I’m not rated I’m having a blast. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -I was working for the company in them thar days, flying up to the border (but not crossing) looking for NVA supplies coming from the north down the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Cambodia then back into South Viet Nam. We were flying real high here….up in the nose-bleed section. Actually this was a stupid move to be this high. We were sitting ducks to any sporting young gook who was trying to make his mark and bring down a "Big Bird." When we flew this high we always placed our service pistola under our genitalia to stop any spurious bulletos from removing our reproductive organals in one surgical swipe of a 25 grain piece of lead moving at 2000 fps vertically and through your seat. BWB
Response:
As he said lets start a war.:) I did not think that highway looked like the ones I remember in Vietnam in 1967 and 68. Jerry – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Here’s a shot just north of An Loc, north of Siagon in 1971 flying the hwy just inside the Cambodian Border. Same shot is on your website…. http://www.angelfire.com/nv/rvpilot/Helicopter.html Caption reads: A shot going from Sprinfield Mass over to Albany New York in the summer of 1973. I’m flying in the left seat most of the time while everyone else sleeps although I’m not rated I’m having a blast. I was working for the company in them thar days, flying up to the border (but not crossing) looking for NVA supplies coming from the north down the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Cambodia then back into South Viet Nam. We were flying real high here….up in the nose-bleed section. Actually this was a stupid move to be this high. We were sitting ducks to any sporting young gook who was trying to make his mark and bring down a "Big Bird." When we flew this high we always placed our service pistola under our genitalia to stop any spurious bulletos from removing our reproductive organals in one surgical swipe of a 25 grain piece of lead moving at 2000 fps vertically and through your seat. BWB
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Was in Vietnam 67-68, in the south most of the time, with 2 different Companies. We had 3 chinooks, use for recovery standby. Our job was sling loading back to base shot down aircraft and some maintenance aircraft. As a crewchief we have to do all maintance work on the CH-47 also. Slept many nights on them. When gunship pilots were in Vienam after 2 months, a lot of them though they were cowboys that could not be shot down. A lot of dumb pilot errors. One of our 330th Chinooks, after 1 1/2 years of flight time, had recovered many hundreds of aircraft. Some day I will have to show a picture of the right side of the Ch-47, with all the painted emblems of the recovered aircraft. One time at Vung Tau, we are working on the aft rotors. We are right next to the refueling depot. A huey is refueling, Another huey set beside him to refuel also. Ah, the 2 hueys well, they connected rotor blades.What a mess. One of my crew was working on the aft rotor, Jumped to the ground, thats a long jump.. What a mess of chopper parts all over. Came back from service and got my Comm helicopter rating and flew 6 different types. Now days, the cost per hour, is to high to fly them any more. So now, build fix wing aircraft full time. Now 55 years old. Where did the last 34 Larry Fitzgerald
Larry I probably watched you fly over with the sling loaded. I was there in 67-68 most of my time was around Chu Chi, Long Benh, and Ben Wha. I left Siagon just two days before TET 1968 to come home. Got home and watched on TV places being blown up in Siagon that I had been at two days before. Jerry (also wondering where the time has gone) Springer
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Bob, If it was not for the AFCS it would be a bear to fly. We practice with the AFCS in the off position just to keep in touch with the bird. When the back wheels are on the ground the AFCS is only working 3/4 gain. Once that switch opens the AFCS goes to full gain and if you are not ready you will be along for a ride. We practice two wheel taxi too. It is a difficult balance of controls. A good person does it all without the brakes. There is a sweet spot with the nose in the air. That is the spot where the aircraft will stay put. Raise the nose a little higher than that and you go backward, a little lower and you move forward. This technique is used to back-up without hovering. I think one of the most scariest things is to hover or taxi backward.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – All valid points but just a little trivia for ya, The CH-47 has a stick position indicator that must be at zero on the ground. Anything other than that will cause it to do weird things. (Snip) As Artie Johnson used to say, "Verrrrrrrry interesting!" The AFCS in those ships must be incredible. Back in the 1960s, New York Airways operated the tandem rotor BV-107. I was an excited twelve year-old, onboard one day when we touched down at JFK on the rear wheels, then taxied toward the Pan Am terminal with the front wheel still off the ground and the ship at a decidedly nose-up attitude. Neato! My dad flew the predecessor of the CH-47, the Piasecki HUP-1 and HUP-2 way back in the day. He related that they flew crappy in forward flight, as each rotor wanted to be "lead." It wasn’t until Frankie’s team developed a workable helipilot for them that they got it to fly reasonably well. I landed in a buddies front yard last weekend in an R-44. He’d told me to come by and do that anytime I was out screwing around. But, I never thought about his damn dogs. As soon as I landed he came out and so did his two dogs. Well, as dogs do, they went nuts watching this goofy machine sitting in their poop zone and ran at me. They also ran at my tail for some reason. It is strange that dogs run for the tail rotor, and I’ve had that experience too and cannot explain it. Luckily, the t/r of a 206 on high skids is, as you know, higher than most dogs, so they’d have to jump up to get it. So far, *that* has thankfully not happened yet. But with my luck…
Response:
All valid points but just a little trivia for ya, The CH-47 has a stick position indicator that must be at zero on the ground. Anything other than that will cause it to do weird things.
(Snip) As Artie Johnson used to say, "Verrrrrrrry interesting!" The AFCS in those ships must be incredible. Back in the 1960s, New York Airways operated the tandem rotor BV-107. I was an excited twelve year-old, onboard one day when we touched down at JFK on the rear wheels, then taxied toward the Pan Am terminal with the front wheel still off the ground and the ship at a decidedly nose-up attitude. Neato! My dad flew the predecessor of the CH-47, the Piasecki HUP-1 and HUP-2 way back in the day. He related that they flew crappy in forward flight, as each rotor wanted to be "lead." It wasn’t until Frankie’s team developed a workable helipilot for them that they got it to fly reasonably well. I landed in a buddies front yard last weekend in an R-44. He’d told me to come by and do that anytime I was out screwing around. But, I never thought about his damn dogs. As soon as I landed he came out and so did his two dogs. Well, as dogs do, they went nuts watching this goofy machine sitting in their poop zone and ran at me. They also ran at my tail for some reason.
It is strange that dogs run for the tail rotor, and I’ve had that experience too and cannot explain it. Luckily, the t/r of a 206 on high skids is, as you know, higher than most dogs, so they’d have to jump up to get it. So far, *that* has thankfully not happened yet. But with my luck…
Response:
Was in Vietnam 67-68, in the south most of the time, with 2 different Companies. We had 3 chinooks, use for recovery standby. Our job was sling loading back to base shot down aircraft and some maintenance aircraft. As a crewchief we have to do all maintance work on the CH-47 also. Slept many nights on them. When gunship pilots were in Vienam after 2 months, a lot of them though they were cowboys that could not be shot down. A lot of dumb pilot errors. One of our 330th Chinooks, after 1 1/2 years of flight time, had recovered many hundreds of aircraft. Some day I will have to show a picture of the right side of the Ch-47, with all the painted emblems of the recovered aircraft. One time at Vung Tau, we are working on the aft rotors. We are right next to the refueling depot. A huey is refueling, Another huey set beside him to refuel also. Ah, the 2 hueys well, they connected rotor blades.What a mess. One of my crew was working on the aft rotor, Jumped to the ground, thats a long jump.. What a mess of chopper parts all over. Came back from service and got my Comm helicopter rating and flew 6 different types. Now days, the cost per hour, is to high to fly them any more. So now, build fix wing aircraft full time. Now 55 years old. Where did the last 34 Larry Fitzgerald
Response:
The problem with crouching or ducking when approaching a helicopter is that people who are looking down at their sneakers are not looking where they’re going. To paraphrase Martha Stewart, this is "a bad thing." People talk about how a rotor can dip low. And yes, approaching (or departing) any helicopter when the blades are not up to at least idle rpm is dangerous. Do not walk under undriven rotor blades! Simple as that. Once the ship is idling, there is *usually* no danger to a man in a normal walk. Although having said that, there are some small helicopters on low skid gear where the rotor is not all that high off the ground to begin with, in which the "idle" speed can be quite low (e.g. Enstrom). Of the larger machines, only the Sikorsky S-76 poses a real danger (because of the low landing gear and forward tilt of the mast), but even it can be mitigated if the pilots simply pull back far enough on the cyclic to keep the tip path plane out of harm’s way. In all my years (20+) of flying helicopters, I’ve never had a gust of wind cause my idling rotor to do anything hinky. Never. Not saying it’ll won’t or couldn’t happen – just hasn’t. (Start-up and shut-down? Different story.) When I fly Bells, I keep the cyclic a little bit aft to hold the tip path plane up. But I’ve seen pilots who are not very diligent about this. Cyclics tend to fall forward if left unattended. A lot depends on which ship we’re talking about… But if you’re a passenger who’s approaching a LongRanger on high-skids. Can you depend on the pilot to make sure he keeps the tip path plane up and out of your way? Sadly, no. You better crouch a little just to be on the safe side. Even I do, most of the time. But please, "crouching" does not mean staring at the ground in a low-crawl. Keep your head up so you can see, okay? No baseball caps, and no fishing poles held over your shoulder. And no walking around the back of the ship. That kind of thing makes our hearts stop…and could easily make yours stop too – permanently. "If you don’t know where you’re going, Any road will take you there." George Harrison
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Slick = UH-1C or D model configured to haul bullits in and bodies out. The bullets were "preventive medicine" called "dustoff" now. LOH Light observation helicopter. Forerunner of the 500 series helo’s. Worked in Hunter Killer teams usually, the loach would draw fire and the gunships would finish the fire. One neat thing to note, If a minigun was fixed on a hardpoint you had to have foreward momentum in order to fire, else the recoil would play havoc with the helicopter. BTW the LOH has evolved and is still in the inventory as the AH-6 and MH-6 of 160th SOAR fame. Instead of one minigun they now have two and FFAR boot. Still aimed the same way tho…….high tech grease pencil. and I was born in 71, am i yung enough fer ya ? all the best Sean "still dumpin shell casings out of the ruck and picken HE shrapnel outta the kevlar" Trost
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First Squadron, Ninth Cav "Head Hunters" First Cavalry Division (Airmoble) 1968 – 1969 I flew as a LOH crewchief for about 9 months. Hueys the rest of the year. Shot down twice. Crashed twice due to stupid pilot stunts. Yeah, the first time I was shot at, it was kind of "exhilerating". The next 10 months weren’t so much fun. My "official" body count was 83, but I think 20 or 25 would be closer to reality. It’s a Viet Nam thing. You wouldn’t understand… SP5 Richard Lamb DFC
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Here’s a shot just north of An Loc, north of Siagon in 1971 flying the hwy just inside the Cambodian Border. I was working for the company in them thar days, flying up to the border (but not crossing) looking for NVA supplies coming from the north down the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Cambodia then back into South Viet Nam. We were flying real high here….up in the nose-bleed section. Actually this was a stupid move to be this high. We were sitting ducks to any sporting young gook who was trying to make his mark and bring down a "Big Bird." When we flew this high we always placed our service pistola under our genitalia to stop any spurious bulletos from removing our reproductive organals in one surgical swipe of a 25 grain piece of lead moving at 2000 fps vertically and through your seat. BWB
Bill, I seem to remember a Shorts Skyvan poping into our base (Phu Loi 69-70) every once in a while. Along with the usual single engine stuff. Bill Higdon
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Bob, All valid points but just a little trivia for ya, The CH-47 has a stick position indicator that must be at zero on the ground. Anything other than that will cause it to do weird things. For example; A little forward cyclic while on the ground the computers will slowly drive the rotors forward until the back wheels come off the ground and the squat switch opens. Then the forward tilt will be so fast that you will not be able to react to it and the aircraft will flip on its back. A little too much aft on the ground; if the breaks are set it will raise the nose until the aft rotor strikes the ground. If the breaks are not set it will start rolling backward.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The problem with crouching or ducking when approaching a helicopter is that people who are looking down at their sneakers are not looking where they’re going. To paraphrase Martha Stewart, this is "a bad thing." People talk about how a rotor can dip low. And yes, approaching (or departing) any helicopter when the blades are not up to at least idle rpm is dangerous. Do not walk under undriven rotor blades! Simple as that. Once the ship is idling, there is *usually* no danger to a man in a normal walk. Although having said that, there are some small helicopters on low skid gear where the rotor is not all that high off the ground to begin with, in which the "idle" speed can be quite low (e.g. Enstrom). Of the larger machines, only the Sikorsky S-76 poses a real danger (because of the low landing gear and forward tilt of the mast), but even it can be mitigated if the pilots simply pull back far enough on the cyclic to keep the tip path plane out of harm’s way. In all my years (20+) of flying helicopters, I’ve never had a gust of wind cause my idling rotor to do anything hinky. Never. Not saying it’ll won’t or couldn’t happen – just hasn’t. (Start-up and shut-down? Different story.) When I fly Bells, I keep the cyclic a little bit aft to hold the tip path plane up. But I’ve seen pilots who are not very diligent about this. Cyclics tend to fall forward if left unattended. A lot depends on which ship we’re talking about… But if you’re a passenger who’s approaching a LongRanger on high-skids. Can you depend on the pilot to make sure he keeps the tip path plane up and out of your way? Sadly, no. You better crouch a little just to be on the safe side. Even I do, most of the time. But please, "crouching" does not mean staring at the ground in a low-crawl. Keep your head up so you can see, okay? No baseball caps, and no fishing poles held over your shoulder. And no walking around the back of the ship. That kind of thing makes our hearts stop…and could easily make yours stop too – permanently. "If you don’t know where you’re going, Any road will take you there." George Harrison
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The rotor of a Huey is some 11 feet up. It can dip to six, and in a gust, lower than that. 1000 hours combat assault time and I still duck. You flew Hueys? Lemme guess…. WO-1 out of Ft. Rucker, then Air Cav in country. Who with? I remember at Fritsche Field being out on the main ramp sometimes when the Cav detachment would come in. I just loved that unique Huey thump-thump-thump in chorus. Everyone transitioned to hover at about 3 feet, then taxied single-file to the Cav ramp. Always reminded me of circus elephants walking head-to-tail behind each other. David Ah, yes, the days of the Air Cav!!!! I’m sure this dude was a WO-1 out of Rucker….hell, who wasn’t in them thar days? You spent your time there before you went out and killed gooks in gun ships or flew dust off in slicks. (any of you younger punks know what a slick is/was? How about a loach? LOH?)
The kids may not but I remember. At Ft. Ord we’d go over to the Navy Post Graduate School (NPG) O Club since the Navy had the good sense in WWII to buy (appropriate?) the Del Monte Hotel and adjoining grounds. In the bar different units would paint their logos on the 3′x3′ ceiling tiles. The one right above my barstool was an OH-6 Loach hovering under a spreading oak. The inscription read, "Army Loaches do it under the trees!" And Pasture Dave…the UH-1 Huey didn’t go thump-thump-thump….it went WOP-WOP-WOP when you dropped collective pitch for the descent.
Spelling how a sound sounds is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but thump-thump-thump sounds a lot more like a Huey than does Wop-Wop-Wop. I’ll split the difference with you… we’ll call it Whump-Whump-Whump. David
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and I was born in 71, am i yung enough fer ya ? all the best Sean "still dumpin shell casings out of the ruck and picken HE shrapnel outta the kevlar" Trost
At-a-boy Sean! Nice commentary. I should have mentioned that I also love the smell of High Explosive (HE) in the mornings. Ahhhh for them good ole days when we blew up the jungle just for kicks. BWB
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A lot depends on which ship we’re talking about… But if you’re a passenger who’s approaching a LongRanger on high-skids. Can you depend on the pilot to make sure he keeps the tip path plane up and out of your way? Sadly, no. You better crouch a little just to be on the safe side. Even I do, most of the time. But please, "crouching" does not mean staring at the ground in a low-crawl. Keep your head up so you can see, okay? No baseball caps, and no fishing poles held over your shoulder.
Nice post Bob. I tell all my pax to maintain eye contact with me from the front as they approach the helicopter and stop outside of the rotor tip radius until I wave them in. Then walk toward me always maintaining eye contact until you are right up to the cockpit. Same thing upon disembarking. You can’t maintain eye contact, but simply walk STRAIGHT FORWARD from the cockpit until you clear the rotors and crouch over a bit while you do. And no walking around the back of the ship. That kind of thing makes our hearts stop…and could easily make yours stop too – permanently.
I landed in a buddies front yard last weekend in an R-44. He’d told me to come by and do that anytime I was out screwing around. But, I never thought about his damn dogs. As soon as I landed he came out and so did his two dogs. Well, as dogs do, they went nuts watching this goofy machine sitting in their poop zone and ran at me. They also ran at my tail for some reason. I think they were drawn to the tailrotor spinning and thought it was a toy to play with. Luckily I was still spooled up to 104% when they did. I pulled pitch and lifted off. From a 5 foot hover I motioned with the back of my hand at the dogs and he got the message, then put them in the house so I could land. I worry more about the tail rotor than anything since I can’t see it. Even landing here at the house there are kids on dirt bikes that drive up all the time while I’m winding down. I’ve decided to put a fence around the pad just to protect them. And, as you said above. If you want to stop the heart of any helicopter pilot, just walk around toward the back of the ship. I got a belt of lightening through my spine just reading your sentence and thinking about it. BWB – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -"If you don’t know where you’re going, Any road will take you there." George Harrison
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Here’s a shot just north of An Loc, north of Siagon in 1971 flying the hwy just inside the Cambodian Border. I was working for the company in them thar days, flying up to the border (but not crossing) looking for NVA supplies coming from the north down the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Cambodia then back into South Viet Nam. We were flying real high here….up in the nose-bleed section. Actually this was a stupid move to be this high. We were sitting ducks to any sporting young gook who was trying to make his mark and bring down a "Big Bird." When we flew this high we always placed our service pistola under our genitalia to stop any spurious bulletos from removing our reproductive organals in one surgical swipe of a 25 grain piece of lead moving at 2000 fps vertically and through your seat. BWB
Response:
Just like many here have stated. The rotorhead my be way up there but the tip-path-plan can get REALLY low. I fly the CH-47D Chinook. The rotorhead is up there some 25 feet but the tip-path-plan of the front rotor can easily dip to 4 feet or less. The AH-64 and AH-1 is way up there to but it is not uncommon in a radical control movement to take out the gunner in the front seat. When you are around a helicopter with all its moving pieces you should do two thing. Err on the safe side ALWAYS. Second just as important as the first, FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. If it is a helicopter with crewchiefs make sure they see you and you watch them ALWAYS. If it just a pilot, make absolutely sure he sees you before you come under the rotors.
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yea… that’s who we need to get over hear from rec.aviation.rotorcraft. There was a good thread awhile back on this one and an "OSHA"/collegiate based attorney put up an entertaining battle over theoretical law and 2nd grade common sense. That was a fun one!
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Chris Woodhouse wrote … I have a question for you. Why does everyone on tv bend over when they walk up to a helicopter with the rotors spinning? I mean the rotors are way over their head so why duck? May not need to duck, but the rotors aren’t all that much higher. Back in September a Latin American pop star exited a copter & waved to his waiting fans — promptly losing several fingers to the rotors. Google for details.
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You flew Hueys? Lemme guess…. WO-1 out of Ft. Rucker, then Air Cav in country. Who with? I remember at Fritsche Field being out on the main ramp sometimes when the Cav detachment would come in. I just loved that unique Huey thump-thump-thump in chorus. Everyone transitioned to hover at about 3 feet, then taxied single-file to the Cav ramp. Always reminded me of circus elephants walking head-to-tail behind each other. David
Ah, yes, the days of the Air Cav!!!! I’m sure this dude was a WO-1 out of Rucker….hell, who wasn’t in them thar days? You spent your time there before you went out and killed gooks in gun ships or flew dust off in slicks. (any of you younger punks know what a slick is/was? How about a loach? LOH?) And Pasture Dave…the UH-1 Huey didn’t go thump-thump-thump….it went WOP-WOP-WOP when you dropped collective pitch for the descent. I loved the Hueys. Hell, I’ve got about 2000 hours logged just sleeping on the cot in the back. You speak about the transition from ETL (effective translational lift) into a hover. What a roar that was in a UH-1. The whole thing shook like the world was coming to an end. Those days were a ball…taking enemy fire as you let down between the trees (chopping branches off) as your gunner was dusting the gooks with 50 cal rounds….the smell of napalm and death everywhere…it was exhilerating. I was in Fire-3 (a HU-1H) one day when we took three bullets through the tail cone and the drive shaft to the tail rotor was severed. It was a ball, we flew back to base at Pleiku at treetop level and about 120 knots then did a run on landing at about 60 knots into a rice paddy in water about 6 feet deep. We didn’t give a shit. We were half drunk and it was government equipment anyway…trashed the fucking Huey. That night back in my hooch we drank distilled pineapple juice that was about 100 proof and told lies about the day. I remember some guys had smuggled some whores in from the Qui Nhon who were real pretty and hid them in my buddies hooch next to mine. They were giggling and laughing and drunk too. We had some God damn fucking Major in there for inspections, but the other guys got him drunk early on and dished one of the whores to him to make him look the other way. One of my buddies (Rich Gilmore, call sign Gillous) took a few hard hits to his main rotor system in a loach and had to dump it in a hot zone. I guess the gooks were everywhere. Gillous called in the air boss for a naplm run and a couple F-4 Phantoms were handy. They napalmed the whole area for about 15 minutes until he could use that 100 mph aluminum tape on his fucked up rotorblade to put the skin back together enough to fly it. He spooled it up, pulled pitch and blew out of the hot LZ shaking like a God damn volcano or an earthquake at full roar. The tape held half way back to Kontum but over Dak To she let go and he had to land agian for more field repair with 100 mph tape. He took on fire the instant they got below treeline from some unfriendlies… it got worse when they landed, so…what do you do? What any red blooded WO-1 would do… more air support by the Air Farce to burn down the jungle and any unsuspecting shooting gook. Once the gooks were creamated and he’d rotor-braked the thing to a stop he jumped on a half cut down tree to grab the blade with the torn skin…three wraps of tape around it and he was back in spooling up the turbine before Charlie woke up and started firing again. Like the Air Cav that he was, he was off once again, roaring south to our base just north of Kontum…and he made it because he was drinking "hot" pinapple juice with us that night and telling us how brave he was. And to the guy who asked the quesiton about ducking as you walk up to the cockpit. Jesus, you better duck. A gust or a pilot simply scratching his balls might hit the cyclic (Stick to you fixed wing assholes), deflect it full left, right or forward and the rotor tips might even hit the damn ground. The smart guy not only ducks when getting close to one of these contraptions, he crawls on the ground to mount one…especially in combat because the pilot might be drunk as hell to begin with. BWB
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Chris Woodhouse wrote … I have a question for you. Why does everyone on tv bend over when they walk up to a helicopter with the rotors spinning? I mean the rotors are way over their head so why duck?
May not need to duck, but the rotors aren’t all that much higher. Back in September a Latin American pop star exited a copter & waved to his waiting fans — promptly losing several fingers to the rotors. Google for details.
Response:
The rotor of a Huey is some 11 feet up. It can dip to six, and in a gust, lower than that. 1000 hours combat assault time and I still duck.
You flew Hueys? Lemme guess…. WO-1 out of Ft. Rucker, then Air Cav in country. Who with? I remember at Fritsche Field being out on the main ramp sometimes when the Cav detachment would come in. I just loved that unique Huey thump-thump-thump in chorus. Everyone transitioned to hover at about 3 feet, then taxied single-file to the Cav ramp. Always reminded me of circus elephants walking head-to-tail behind each other. David
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I have a question for you. Why does everyone on tv bend over when they walk up to a helicopter with the rotors spinning? I mean the rotors are way over their head so why duck? — Chris
Response:
I have a question for you. Why does everyone on tv bend over when they walk up to a helicopter with the rotors spinning? I mean the rotors are way over their head so why duck?
Speak for yourself, Shorty! :-) Seriously, I think it is both a natural reaction, and a wise one. When I was in the Army, we constantly lost soldiers to main rotor strikes. Not as common as problems with people running into the rear rotor, but at least once a year. If the ground is uneven, or something strange causes the blades to flex, they can take the head off of a six foot individual. A Blackhawk is a big bird, but even though the mast is way up over head, that doesn’t mean the tips are not closer than 6 feet to the ground where you are walking. Eric
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The rotor of a Huey is some 11 feet up. It can dip to six, and in a gust, lower than that. 1000 hours combat assault time and I still duck. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have a question for you. Why does everyone on tv bend over when they walk up to a helicopter with the rotors spinning? I mean the rotors are way over their head so why duck? Speak for yourself, Shorty! :-) Seriously, I think it is both a natural reaction, and a wise one. When I was in the Army, we constantly lost soldiers to main rotor strikes. Not as common as problems with people running into the rear rotor, but at least once a year. If the ground is uneven, or something strange causes the blades to flex, they can take the head off of a six foot individual. A Blackhawk is a big bird, but even though the mast is way up over head, that doesn’t mean the tips are not closer than 6 feet to the ground where you are walking. Eric