So the Army has been kinda busy......

[SDF_Specialist]

Kinda scared the crap out of my wife yesterday morning, and afternoon. We hear this loud noise that seemed to be approaching somewhat fast, but would taper off once in a while. When my curiousity finally got the best of me, I took a walk outside to see two UH-60A's flying around my street. At one point, one stopped just shy of being directly over my house, and hovered for a minute or so. Once the other caught up, they both took off like a bat out of hell. My wife was only freaking out because the only base near us that hangers military aircraft (to our knowledge) is the 179th in Mansfield. Then again, she may have been freaking out because they were so low (I could actually read "United States Army" on the side). Pretty cool if you ask me.

Message icon - MIKE

[PHall]

As long as nobody is fast roping into your front yard, what's the problem?

[Ricochet13]

That would be the problem perhaps!  No one roped! 

I get A-10's low over my house all the time.  It is inspiring!

[SDF_Specialist]

It was definately cool, don't get me wrong. But we live in a small community. It's rare to even see a LifeFlight bird, let alone an Army bird flying. No one roped in my yard, but I was ready to get out of the way in case they started to fire that huge gun sticking out of the front

[Pylon]

I enjoy the sound of F-16's over my house regularly - especially now that they're ramping up night flying.   

Too bad in a few years, that sound will be gone for the silence of Reapers zipping around.   

[RogueLeader]

From my house in Oklahoma, I was alwas hearing aircraft, artillary, and machine gun fire.


BTW, I was a quarter mile from Ft. Sill's training side of post.
Almost like being in Bagdad, but with no sand, and noone trying to kill you.

[Gunner C]

It was definately cool, don't get me wrong. But we live in a small community. It's rare to even see a LifeFlight bird, let alone an Army bird flying. No one roped in my yard, but I was ready to get out of the way in case they started to fire that huge gun sticking out of the front

What you saw was probably an MH-60 and that "huge gun sticking out of the front" was a refuling probe.

GC

[DC]

I see black hawks flying around all the time. Once, about two years ago I actually saw two MH-60s refueling off a C-130, could even see the fuel lines stringing back off the herk. Very cool.

[notaNCO forever]

I once saw two C-130's flying really low over my house.

[MIKE]

It was definately cool, don't get me wrong. But we live in a small community. It's rare to even see a LifeFlight bird, let alone an Army bird flying. No one roped in my yard, but I was ready to get out of the way in case they started to fire that huge gun sticking out of the front

What you saw was probably an MH-60 and that "huge gun sticking out of the front" was a refuling probe.

GC

^^ Yeah... turn in your CAP membership card.

[SDF_Specialist]

It was definately cool, don't get me wrong. But we live in a small community. It's rare to even see a LifeFlight bird, let alone an Army bird flying. No one roped in my yard, but I was ready to get out of the way in case they started to fire that huge gun sticking out of the front

What you saw was probably an MH-60 and that "huge gun sticking out of the front" was a refuling probe.

GC

^^ Yeah... turn in your CAP membership card.

Not much of a helicopter person, but I did google the MH-60. Yep, that was it. My mistake.

You can have the membership card, but I'm keeping the problems that go with it. I still have to get back at those people.

[♠SARKID♠]

I was just out delivering furniture in Madison, WI last Friday and I seriously thought of moving there.  I was dropping off a bedroom set when a couple F-16s screamed over my head.  I asked the customer if that was annoying to have on a daily basis, she said she loved it.  I probably would too!  Made it even better when a C-130 took off in front of me as I was pulling out of the subdivision.

[SDF_Specialist]

Now that is a place I would love to live. Having places like that fly over you all the time would be great. Truth to be told, I'm kinda sick of having Continental, AA, UA and so on being the only cool thing that flies around here. Of course, there is still that matter of my wife freaking out. Quite hilarious if you ask me.

[sandman]

I see black hawks flying around all the time. Once, about two years ago I actually saw two MH-60s refueling off a C-130, could even see the fuel lines stringing back off the herk. Very cool.

Topic tangent: There's a cool video on military.com showing a helo cutting off its own refueling probe with the main rotors while trying to engage the fuel line! Anybody see it?

LT

[DC]

I see black hawks flying around all the time. Once, about two years ago I actually saw two MH-60s refueling off a C-130, could even see the fuel lines stringing back off the herk. Very cool.

Topic tangent: There's a cool video on military.com showing a helo cutting off its own refueling probe with the main rotors while trying to engage the fuel line! Anybody see it?

LT

Seen it. I'm sure the first thing that crew did after landing was change their shorts...

[Hawk200]

Topic tangent: There's a cool video on military.com showing a helo cutting off its own refueling probe with the main rotors while trying to engage the fuel line! Anybody see it?

An MH-53. Tried to bring the nose up to too fast and forgot about blade droop. The MH-60 has the same issue. 'Hawk blades can droop to four feet off the ground (when on the ground, of course). It's the primary reason that you never walk toward a Blackhawk from the front when blades are turning.

Yeah, I know it's a "No duh!" kind of thing, but people still get killed that way.

Seen it. I'm sure the first thing that crew did after landing was change their shorts...

I would doubt it. Most likely there was plenty of swearing from the time it happened to well after touchdown. Betting the crewcheif got a little torqued too. It takes a little time to change those things.

[Gunner C]

Topic tangent: There's a cool video on military.com showing a helo cutting off its own refueling probe with the main rotors while trying to engage the fuel line! Anybody see it?

An MH-53. Tried to bring the nose up to too fast and forgot about blade droop. The MH-60 has the same issue. 'Hawk blades can droop to four feet off the ground (when on the ground, of course). It's the primary reason that you never walk toward a Blackhawk from the front when blades are turning.

Yeah, I know it's a "No duh!" kind of thing, but people still get killed that way.

Seen it. I'm sure the first thing that crew did after landing was change their shorts...

I would doubt it. Most likely there was plenty of swearing from the time it happened to well after touchdown. Betting the crewcheif got a little torqued too. It takes a little time to change those things.

Blade droop is a fact: the flight surgeon from 3rd SF Group had the top of his head taken off by an MH-60.  The crew chief tried to stop him and the pilots were helpless - they could only watch.

[NIN]

Blade droop is a fact: the flight surgeon from 3rd SF Group had the top of his head taken off by an MH-60.  The crew chief tried to stop him and the pilots were helpless - they could only watch.

Droop notwithstanding (yeah, lets not talk aft centrifugal droop stops on the CH-47..  me and the A-511 fire department got real intimate one night after a goggle flight where my FE had decided to swap out the droop stop springs and not bother to write it up the day before), the Chinook's forward blades can come down to something like 3' 9" with the controls out of neutral.

We landed in a rice paddy one day on a ROK haul. Our forward blade arc was just over the paddy dike off our nose.  We had slow-turning blades after shutdown and one of the ROKs wandered over to watch.  I was working the ramp and my crew chief was distracted by someone on the #2 side when the guy stepped up on the paddy dike to get a better view. The pilots caught the guy's actions about 2 seconds too late to do anything but pull full up on the collective.  The bottom of the leading edge of the forward red blade whacked this ROKA corporal square in the side of the head at about a 25 degree AOA.  He was wearing a steel pot, but the blade inertia still flung him about 20 feet.   They medevac'd him out on a ROKA UH-1 still breathing but looking like a stomped sack of poo.

Ugh.

Left a big dent in the honeycomb of the bottom of the blade, too.  We had to fly it home like that on a "one-time"

[SJFedor]

Blade droop is a fact: the flight surgeon from 3rd SF Group had the top of his head taken off by an MH-60.  The crew chief tried to stop him and the pilots were helpless - they could only watch.

Droop notwithstanding (yeah, lets not talk aft centrifugal droop stops on the CH-47..  me and the A-511 fire department got real intimate one night after a goggle flight where my FE had decided to swap out the droop stop springs and not bother to write it up the day before), the Chinook's forward blades can come down to something like 3' 9" with the controls out of neutral.

We landed in a rice paddy one day on a ROK haul. Our forward blade arc was just over the paddy dike off our nose.  We had slow-turning blades after shutdown and one of the ROKs wandered over to watch.  I was working the ramp and my crew chief was distracted by someone on the #2 side when the guy stepped up on the paddy dike to get a better view. The pilots caught the guy's actions about 2 seconds too late to do anything but pull full up on the collective.  The bottom of the leading edge of the forward red blade whacked this ROKA corporal square in the side of the head at about a 25 degree AOA.  He was wearing a steel pot, but the blade inertia still flung him about 20 feet.   They medevac'd him out on a ROKA UH-1 still breathing but looking like a stomped sack of poo.

Ugh.

Left a big dent in the honeycomb of the bottom of the blade, too.  We had to fly it home like that on a "one-time"

Lucky doesn't even begin to explain that guy that day...

[NIN]

Lucky doesn't even begin to explain that guy that day...

Well, I picked his steel pot up as they were working on him (it wound up another 30-40 ft downrange from his point of impact) and it was mashed to hell on one side.  I'm not sure how "lucky" the guy really was.

A 600lb rotor blade made of fiberglass, honeycomb, kevlar, stainless steel & nickel even moving "slow" (we were about a rev and a half from the blades stopping, so they were probably moving at 4-5 fps? dunno, never calculated it) carries a crapload of inertia and kinetic energy to transfer.  Had the leading edge whacked him, even at that speed, it probably would have killed him outright.  As it was, judging by the helmet, my guess is that he either suffered a traumatic brain injury or never regained consciousness. 

Back on the original subject:  Up until 2 years ago, I lived just inside the downwind-to-base turn for the 17 RWY at the local airpatch.  It was nice to look up from my back deck and see a J-3 or something puttering over on a lazy Sunday morning.  The Aviation Support Facility, OTOH, was less than a 1/2 mile away directly south, and the UH-60s would often launch off their ramp and go straight north, and bomb over my house at less than 500ft.  While the sound of rotary wing aircraft will put me to sleep, I always expected the Blackhawk Bus Bombers to come thru my roof some night.*

* NIN is not a fan of UH-60s in any incarnation.