Helicopters?

[Cliff_Chambliss]

Aviation can be very harsh when it comes to stupidity.

Gravity is a harsh mistress, indeed.

There is no such thing as "gravity".  The earth sucks.

[Garibaldi]

Randy: you have never seen helicopters until you see 50 Hueys in formation.  Saw that every once in awhile when I was in VN.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s I was visiting my grandparents in rural North Carolina. I heard an awful racket and went outside to see what appeared to be an entire helicopter assault battalion flying over. I swear there must have been 70 Hueys or more, all flying in formation. Truly an awesome spectacle. Fort Bragg was too far away and I never figured out where they were from.

[arajca]

From an olde helicopter pilot I met a few years ago:

Helicopters do not fly. They beat the air into submission.

[ZigZag911]

Rotary wing AC are too expensive to maintain, too expensive too operate, and too difficult for the majority of our aircrew...which is not a knock on CAP pilots... but look at the number of RW incidents and accidents in the military, even with their frequent flying, continuous training and operations.

Practically speaking, CAP does search, not much rescue...so why would we need or want helicopters?

Lighter than air craft, with their capability of low, slow flight with multiple observers, would be more helpful...I saw one used in a mission about 30 years ago, western NJ and eastern PA, rough terrain, multi day operations. Someone arranged to borrow the Fuji blimp, with their aircrew; target found in a matter of hours...but LTAC are also expensive to buy, build, operate, and require special ground crew training...again, accidents waiting to happen with our limited 'op tempo'...which is why cooperative arrangements (such as mentioned earlier) make more sense than CAP ownership and operation.

[sarmed1]

...but look at the number of RW incidents and accidents in the military

As someone who rides pretty regular like as a crew member on a RW I have made a few observations.

Its not a matter of # of incidents, I think its just the "oops's" are less forgiving than the fixed wing world....
(ie run out of gas fixed wing glide down to the road/field etc...everyone walks away; run out of gas on RW, helo falls like rock and usually breaks into a bunch of little pieces)

I hear about way more fixed wing incidents in the military than rotor wing (not counting ones involving things that go bang or boom)...

Crashes that I do hear about in the rotor wing world (especially with EMS services) are frequently caused by crews doing things that they know they are not supposed to do (usually involving weather).


mk

[ol'fido]

Plus, I would imagine it would depend on the type of flying your doing and the age of the airframe. When I was in Hawaii, the 25th ID was flying a mix of Blackhawks, Hueys, Kiowas, Chinooks, and Cobras. It got to the point you could tell which copter it was by the sound even the HPD, CG, and HFD choppers. During my whole 3 years there, I don't think the Army lost a single bird. That's a lot of NOE and other "sporty" flying without any real incidents. The Marines on the other hand were putting about one CH-46 in the drink a month for a while there. They even lost a Hornet or two. The Hornets at that time were almost brand new and the Sea Knights were really old. I almost had to fly an air assault in a 46 and it scared me to death. Luckily, we switched to Chinooks for my chalk.

[The Infamous Meerkat]

Didn't have CH-46's or Hornets at Kaneohe, must have been back in the day. We did manage to drop a CH-53 into the sandbar though, not to help the statistics... Turns out, if you fly a bird from the Vietnam era until now, it starts to give out on you...

who knew?  :angel:

[ol'fido]

'88-'92. K-Bay lost a F-18 being flown by a Canadian exchange pilot that I remember. Don't know if they were assigned there then but we saw them flying around enough. They definitely had '46s. When you have one try to land on you not once but twice, after being waved off, you kind of remember these things.

[NIN]

I had an opportunity to play crew chief on a CH-53 once. They light up the APU, and hydraulic fluid starts raining from the slip rings in the transmission. I make the intercom call for a leak in the cabin. The regular crew chief looks in the cabin door and says "no factor".

I'm thinking " and people joke that Chinooks leak... "

So, we start turning number one, and as the slip rings start moving, the rain gets worse in the cabin. I make the call again on the intercom. The Marine corporal crew chief looks again and says "no factor".

I un plugged my ICS cord and walked away. My platoon sergeant had been a Phrog guy in the Corps.  He knew right away why I was walking back into the office.

[sarmed1]

A friend of mine was an MH-53 gunner and then crew chief, he always said its when it's not leaking fluid that they start to get worried....

mk

[PHall]

A friend of mine was an MH-53 gunner and then crew chief, he always said its when it's not leaking fluid that they start to get worried....

mk

If it's not leaking then the reservior is empty!

[Flying Pig]

Funny....  I fly MD500s, OH58s and UH1s and they don't leak.  Their engine compartments are pristine. 

[Майор Хаткевич]

Benefits of civilian maintenance?

[SarDragon]

Benefits of civilian maintenance?

Not necessarily. Pride of "ownership" is a factor. I saw really clean, and really cruddy airframes when I was in the Navy. The clean ones had maintainers who "owned" their planes/helos, and took care of them as if they took them home. The dirty ones were frequently older units that the maintainers didn't really care about, and thought of them as "just another piece of crap I've gotta fix".

[NIN]

Funny....  I fly MD500s, OH58s and UH1s and they don't leak.  Their engine compartments are pristine.

Yep, never saw a UH-1 with a nasty engine deck. The hell hole was another matter...

[Flying Pig]

Funny....  I fly MD500s, OH58s and UH1s and they don't leak.  Their engine compartments are pristine.

Yep, never saw a UH-1 with a nasty engine deck. The hell hole was another matter...

^Ill have to agree with that   I would say in the military, helicopters are work horse tools.  Well, to be fair, They are flying in dirty environments, coming in at night, getting their MX taken care of and right back out the door.  Crews do not always have "their" helicopter.  Where my situation is different.  We have 5 aircraft (2 OH58s, 1 UH1H, C337T and a C172)  and we have two pilots and 2 mechanics. The mechanics can take their time, address very minute attention to detail/TLC issues, and I hand wash and wax them and detail the interiors about once per month.  They Huey doesn't fly all the time, so it usually gets attention after a mission.  When it comes back from a fire, thats when it goes to the bath because its pretty dirty.  But its pretty cool looking when it comes back with the tail boom all black from the soot!  Means she's been out working! 
So with the military, the work volume isn't even comparable.  Where I am, there are 4 of us.  If the Sheriff or a commander comes by and sees the helicopter all nasty and me sitting at my desk typing on CAPTalk.... someones gonna pay!

That being said though, If any aircraft I am flying is squirting fluids, its not flying.  Ive never flown in a military helicopter that was squirting fluids.  I spent plenty of time in the back of 53s and 46s as a grunt and never witnessed the stories of the crew chief running around with fluid squirting from the overhead.  Our two mechanics at work are both retired Army E8s who were 58 and UH1 mechs.  They don't really get into the detail of appearances, but the MX itself is great.

[UH60guy]

If helicopters are so safe, how come we never have any vintage helicopter fly-ins?

[NIN]

You need to go to West Chester Pennsylvania. You'll see some vintage

[UH60guy]

Yep, never saw a UH-1 with a nasty engine deck. The hell hole was another matter...

Similar story for the UH-60. It's never the engine deck, though the hydraulic deck can leak down the side or the transmission can leak a little into the cabin if the drip pan isn't clean.

I learned the lesson of helmet bag placement the hard way on one maintenance test flight back in aught seven. All the seats were out, so I tossed my helmet bag in the center of the cabin and climbed in the cockpit to begin the runup with the maintenance test pilot. I don't remember what part of the startup we were in, but it couldn't have been very long after we started the #1 engine than we hear the crew cheief say "shut it down, shut it down!" over the ICS. About a gallon of oil from somewhere near the transmission oil cooler fan (which apparently wasn't hooked up right or something, I can't remember) decided to purge somehow straight through the cabin ceiling, and straight into my flight bag.