USAF Considers Extending Huey 30 Years

[FARRIER]

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120422/DEFREG02/304220002/USAF-Considers-Extending-Huey-30-Years?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

[SarDragon]

The Navy and Marine Corps have been doing upgrades since the '90s, maybe even earlier. That includes new avionics, and a power train upgrade. All they need is money. 

[SARDOC]

It is a great Utility helicopter

[bosshawk]

My first ride in an A model Huey was in Korea in 1963.  [darn], that was a long time ago.

[Cliff_Chambliss]

That was just about the same time the Army had a (then HU-1) simulator they brought up to the State Fair in Birmingham, Al. and as a CAP cadet was allowed to "fire" a simulated "Dart" missile at a simulated target.  Wow, the sim did not move but the picture our front did and I was able to "fly" the missile all the way to target.  Interesting how some things just stay imprinted in your memories.

[NIN]

"When the fly the last Blackhawk to the boneyard, they'll fly the crew home in a Huey."

[bosshawk]

The Army keeps saying that the Hueys are all retired and it always seems that another one shows up somewhere. 

NIN: I agree with you completely.  You can probably extend that to the Lakotas, too.

[PHall]

Supposedly the Army has finally retired it's last Huey. Maryland Army Guard IIRC.
Heck they even replaced the Huey's out at Kwajalien several years ago.

[titanII]

I'd love to see an updated, modernized Huey!
The Huey is to the US military as the Hind is to the Russian military. Two (very different) great, reliable, workhorses!

[NIN]

Supposedly the Army has finally retired it's last Huey. Maryland Army Guard IIRC.
Heck they even replaced the Huey's out at Kwajalien several years ago.

Yeah, tell the NH ARNG that the 2 they have sitting on the ramp are retired.

[Stearmann4]

I fly a Huey+ which is the same thing as the Huey IIs that the AF is flying down at Ft Rucker. The "Plus, or II" mod is a basic Army surplus UH-1H with a Cobra engine tail, wide chord rotor blades, and transmissions. It makes a stock 105kt Huey into a 130kt, high altitude bronco.

While the Army was in the process of moth balling all it's Hueys, along with wasting money on the Commanche, Kiowa replacement and the now almost useless Lakota, the AF took all the Army's DRMOs Huey,s and for comparitive pennies, had them all rebuilt into Huey IIs right in Ozark, AL outside Ft Rucker for their primary training division. The AF's Huey's even have glass cockpits and will smoke a Lakota both in payload and hot and high performance. In fact, they come very close to the UH-1N (twin PT-6) B-212s performance using only one engine.

The private sector is now starting to get ahold of ex-Army huey's and finding what a bargain a re-built Huey II is rather than prucjasing a shiny new helicopter.

Mike- 

[Майор Хаткевич]

I had no idea those were still flying in the military...

[ThatOneGuy]

They still are (kind of). I flew on one operated by the Air Force at my basic encampment two years ago, that thing is FUNNNNNNNN 

[NIN]

They still are (kind of). I flew on one operated by the Air Force at my basic encampment two years ago, that thing is FUNNNNNNNN 

The UH-1 is a pretty solid helicopter. Bell did it right.

First helicopter I ever hovered.

[FlyTiger77]

They still are (kind of). I flew on one operated by the Air Force at my basic encampment two years ago, that thing is FUNNNNNNNN 

First helicopter I ever hovered.

Me, too.

First aircraft I ever soloed, too. With about 18-20 hours of total time in my logbook.

[NIN]

First aircraft I ever soloed, too. With about 18-20 hours of total time in my logbook.

Stunning that they let you fly off over the treeline all on your own with that amount of time, ain't it?

I wasn't going thru primary, I just had a crusty old W4 MTP sitting next to me going "Here, kid, get on the cyclic.. now the collective.. you got the pedals.. I'm backing you up, no sweat.. nice hover.."  So I'm hovering away just dandy, really got the hang of it, and I look over at him and both his hands and his feet are nowhere near the controls.

Man, talk about "pilot induced oscillation" when I saw that.. Yikes.

[Майор Хаткевич]

I think he means solo aircraft and a total of 20 hours on the airframe, not when he got to solo. At least how I read it...

[NIN]

I think he means solo aircraft and a total of 20 hours on the airframe, not when he got to solo. At least how I read it...

Read it again.

[FlyTiger77]

They still are (kind of). I flew on one operated by the Air Force at my basic encampment two years ago, that thing is FUNNNNNNNN 

First helicopter I ever hovered.

Me, too.

First aircraft I ever soloed, too. With about 18-20 hours of total time in my logbook.

I can't remember exactly how many hours I had when I first soloed. It may have been as many as 24, but 20-ish seems to ring a bell. (It was a long time ago and the logbook that survives started at 36.1 hours by which time I had already logged 2.5 hours of solo).

When I went through Initial Entry Rotary Wing (IERW) the UH-1H was the primary trainer. A 9,500 pound max gross weight, 1,300 horsepower turbine helicopter was the first aircraft I ever flew. I finished the Huey contact portion with a total of 57.8 hours and finished my instrument rating with 30 hours in the simulator and an additional 19.6 hours in the aircraft. Then, it was on to the Cobra, etc, etc, etc.

So, yes, I first soloed at well less than 25 hours in my logbook. The aircraft had thousands of hours on the airframe. At one point, I flew a 1962 model Huey (older than me) with over 30,000 hours on the airframe. The Huey is a great aircraft.

When I received my first private pilot certicate just last month, I already had over 800 total flying hours (and a commercial, instrument helicopter ticket).

[riffraff]

I can backup the flight hours to solo. My first solo was at 18.7 hours -- a TH-55 out of Ft Rucker in Sept 1985. Pretty hilarious considering navigation wasn't taught until the (then) UH-1 contact phase.  We literally were sent out with instuctions along the lines of, "when you see the yellow building with the metal roof, turn right and fly for a few more minutes until you see the stage field". Then it was 12-18 trainees jammed into a stage field with 4-6 lanes (runways) each with 3 landing points on them. Credit to the Army and its program. No incidents during my 9 months there.

As for the UH-1H -- I have fond memories of the time I flew them. I don't recall it having any vices.

[huey]

I was trained in TH-55A in 100 hours (yeah 100 solid flying hours combined of 2 phases) which was soloed after 12 hours; then transfered to UH-1H for another 125 hours comprising of 3 phases: transition, instrument, and tactical training. Got the Army Aviator Badge and a Diploma of "Initial Rotary-Wing Aviator Course."
My class is 74-40 ORWAC at Fort Rucker, Ala. Any buddies out there?

[simon]

Try hearing "Whop-whop-whop" without looking up.

[SarDragon]

Try hearing "Whop-whop-whop" without looking up.

Super easy for me. I've mostly lost any fascination with the Huey noise I might ever have had.

[NIN]

Try hearing "Whop-whop-whop" without looking up.

People I know are stunned when we hear a helo and I say "Oh, thats a Huey.." or "Blackhawk.." or "sounds like a 414.."

And about 14 times out of 15, I'm right. "There goes the DHART EC-135.."

I didn't like living right where the NH ARNG Blackhawks would fly over my house at 500 ft, but that was due to my overall disdain for Sikorsky products.

[Critical AOA]

Hueys! Worked on them.  Rappelled out of them.  Skydived out of them. Did aerial gunnery out of them.  About the only thing I never did was to actually fly one.  Fond memories of the old bird.

[Garibaldi]

My one experience with a Huey was in 1981 or 1982. We were at encampment at Fort Benning and no one told us that our visit to Lawson AAF would be capped off by orientation rides in Hueys. Being 13 or 14, I was the dumb@$$ who thought he knew how to guide one in, so I did, to the bemused stares of everyone around me. We loaded up and I was joking with a friend as we buckled up, and the next thing I knew we were 50 feet up. The noise was incredible and conversation at that point nearly impossible due to the wind and the rotorblade noise. For some reason, I made a motion like I was tossing a grenade out the door (yes, I was THAT cadet) and got nailed for it by my flight commander when we landed. We flew down some railroad tracks at about 100 knots and 150 feet. It was sheer heaven, and that's what I wanted to do when I grew up: fly helicopters. My next experience was at Fort Rucker about three years later. My dad had arranged for a few of us to tour the base for a few days. We got to see the giant heliport where all the Hueys and Hughes and Chinooks were, toured the control tower and maintenance facility, where they had a simulator. It was simply a pilot's seat with a collective and cyclic, and a portion of a rotor turning overhead. I don't know what they ripped it out of, but when they powered it up, we could play with the controls, change pitch, pretend we were turning, and see what the controls did overhead. I didn't want to get out.

Well, long story short, I didn't get to go fly helicopters in the Army. Another story for another day.

[ol'fido]

A year or so before I got to Schofield Barracks, they were using East Range and the Light Infantry Training Command to film the show "Tour of Duty". So how cool is it to be flying NOE up and down the gulches out there. One second your looking at sky and the next your looking at the streambed at the bottom of the gulch. Then you would have to wait for your stomach to catch up when they popped up over the ridge into the next gulch. We had one guy in my squad that was afraid of flying. You would feel the wind rushing past you and listen to this guy scream like a little girl.

[NIN]

WIWAC (we have a thread for that, but this part fits here), I got my first helo ride and I'd only been in CAP about 6 weeks.   Several years later, we got helo rides at our cadet staff selection (1984, I recall, but it might have been 1985, the year I didn't get selected for summer encampment staff).

I remember sitting in the right side gunner well of this UH-1 as we blasted out of this clearing in the Proud Lake State Rec area (odd, Google Maps shows no clearing within walking distance of the facility we used there, so either my remembery is getting *really* bad, or a LOT has changed in 30 years). I was in short sleeve blues and a poplin jacket, and the rotor wash on that side is causing the poplin jacket to beat the everloving daylights out of me, but the pilot cranked it over to the right and I was looking straight down at the ground from about 250 ft up and screaming "I LOVE THIS!!!" at the top of my lungs (the guy next to me might tell you it was "I'M GONNA DIE!" but don't believe him)

I was *hooked* from that minute forward.

I have about 1.5 hrs in a UH-1. Another 1.5 or 2.0 in AH-1s, about 1.0 in OH-58s, and probably 2.5 or 3.0 in Chinooks.

[LGM30GMCC]

I have gotten a total of about 6-7 rides in UH-1s. One of them was a Canadian Forces UH-1. That was pretty cool and my first time in a helicopter.

The rest were with the 40th Helicopter Squadron at Malmstrom AFB. Twice it was to get out to site when the roads were impassable but the air was clear.

The best though was when I was carrying some documents out to one of the crews that they needed very quickly. We touched down at one Missile Alert Facility (MAF) and kicked out the first two guys carrying a set and then flew on to the second MAF. Touching down the pilots asked us how long we would be we told them about 5-10 minutes tops. Ran for the gate as the engines are just spooling down to idle behind us. The cops at the site were wondering what the heck was going on as we quickly went underground, came back up shortly after and just kinda strolled back to the chopper.

[Garibaldi]

Not exactly on-topic, but interesting nonetheless...

I mentioned in another post that we had a SAREX today and I took some cadets down. We were talking about encampment and the Blackhawk rides they were going to get, and I told them about the Huey rides WE got as a surprise. Then, when we got to mission base, at Fort Smith Airport, there was a Blackhawk doing touch and goes on our flightline. THEN, as we were coming back to MB from our sortie, I noticed that the storm we had encountered further north was coming at us, then I looked again...four Apaches were making their approach. As they flew over us, we could see they were loaded for bear. The cadets were drooling...