USAF Considers Extending Huey 30 Years

[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...