What Happens When Choppers Bump Rotars

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Seems as though someone needs to be in control of the air space near the pad or at least some better protocol in place.

a reply to: GBP/JPY

hold my beer....


5 feet is plenty, well maybe not

A miss is a miss no matter the distance involved...Helos have some pretty harsh aerial phenomenon going against them.

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: intrptr

Someone needs to take some paint out to the pad and draw some lines for those bozos. Reminds me of drivers who take their half of the road out of the middle.

Oh yah, goes to home depot and buys spray can.

Drivers that come a little right before turning left are my favorite. At least they don't have spinning rotors.

That was some expert level stupidity.

a reply to: pteridine

I was a US Navy helicopter aircrewman back in the early 80's. We flew Sea Kings from carriers. We left the ship and flew to Sicily to pick up a guy from the State Department. I hadn't slept in about 30 hours and was trying to catch a nap on the flight back, but, this guy kept asking too many questions. I thought that he was done when he grabbed my shoulder and said "You're leaking something." I looked and there was some main gearbox oil dripping on to the deck. I asked him to do me a favor and watch that leak. When he asked "Why?" I told him that if we stopped leaking the gearbox was out of oil and I had to tell the pilot that we were going to crash. The whole five hour flight he sat there and watched the leak, his head moving up and down with each drop. When we landed I grabbed a rag and wiped up about 5 ounces of oil and left the aircraft. Our gearbox holds 12 gallons of oil and the aircraft can fly safely on 3 gallons.

originally posted by: Plotus
I flew every day for a year in Vietnam in a Bell UH-1 Iroquois, a 'Slick'. I was a doorgunner, and we flew chase for B52's, inserted and extracted Rangers, Rain or shine. It was exciting, scary and intense quite often. Having done that much flying without incident has given me an appreciation and subtle hint. Perhaps I had never fly again, lest calamity do find me, and perhaps all my 'get out of jail cards' are all used up. The next time might indeed be calamity.

Video 1 is stupidity, not even pilot error, stupidity.

69/70 then again from 1973 until 1976 but was based out of Thailand from 73 to 76... I flew only helicopters in 69/70 for the first Cav. We were rude and at times highly unsophisticated but if you needed something done we did it.. We were bullet proof and almost invisible in our slicks and gun ships or so we told ourselves. Other guys got Popped or just had bad luck.... I have been shot down, hydraulic failure downed, mortared, tailrotor failure, and almost blow up in two LZs but the UH-1H got me out of the zone of death every time... 3750 hours flying helicopters and not a moment of sleep.. 25,000 hours flying fixed wing and no telling how many hours I managed to get some sleep..

A Helicopter will kill you in a heart beat if you do not know what you are doing or the gods hate you..

One friend by the name of Toni crashed or was shot down 5 times as a new guy (first 4 months in country).. I left V.N. before he made aircraft commander.. I saw an old unit mate of mine back in the states and asked about Toni.. He was killed the second week of Laos.. Great guy but a total magnet ass with some serious bad luck.

Everyone seemed to crash Twice (mechanical or just shot down by the golden BB) during a tour except for Rich who came to Vietnam cherry and left Cherry... It was just the average... I remember telling Toni after a rather nasty crash (his third) that he should be OK now for the odds were in his favor.. He always walked away from a crash even though others were killed or maimed ..
My old unit
youtu.be...

youtu.be...

Hah hah!

I have you all beat...

I rode in a helicopter.

In China.

With a new pilot.

Twice in one day.

True story.

Seriously though, it was super awesome and I want to do it again.

a reply to: SpartanStoic

When you have 1200 hours riding in them let us know.

a reply to: Allaroundyou