Can you help me identify this Huey variant?

One of my coworkers shared this picture with me, he said it was grom late 1983 in an oversea military base. He thinks it was some sort of reconnosence variant.

As a guess, I would say delivering main rotor blades to another one that is damaged. Field repair.

a reply to: turbo8

Looks like a Bell UH-1 "Iroquois" variant.

Hard to say what's attached underneath the fuselage. I was thinking some type of ground mapping radar array or perhaps just an external fuel cell/tank.🤷🏾‍♂️

He also said "If you look close it had high freq antennas right under the doors, they look like outlines of hour glasses whole bunch of wierd details for the time."

originally posted by: turbo8
One of my coworkers shared this picture with me, he said it was grom late 1983 in an oversea military base. He thinks it was some sort of reconnosence variant.

Probably a Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) pod on a regular Huey. Looks like a first generation Huey. An educated guess.

a reply to: turbo8

Is it possible that the U.S. Army was using LIDAR in the Asian jungles long before we knew about it?

en.m.wikipedia.org...

Under the direction of Malcolm Stitch, the Hughes Aircraft Company introduced the first lidar-like system in 1961,[9][10] shortly after the invention of the laser. Intended for satellite tracking, this system combined laser-focused imaging with the ability to calculate distances by measuring the time for a signal to return using appropriate sensors and data acquisition electronics. It was originally called "Colidar" an acronym for "COherent Light Detecting And Ranging,"[11] derived from the term "radar", itself an acronym for "Radio Detection And Ranging

That is interesting, anybody here serve in Vietnam?

Thanks for sharing this.

a reply to: 1947boomer

en.m.wikipedia.org...

Side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) is an aircraft- or satellite-mounted imaging radar pointing perpendicular to the direction of flight (hence side-looking).[1] A squinted (nonperpendicular) mode is possible also. SLAR can be fitted with a standard antenna (real aperture radar) or an antenna using synthetic aperture.

Looking for old pics of hueys with SLAR, not having much luck.

Edit: and here we have something I never even heard of...

Semantic Segmentation of SLAR Imagery with Convolutional LSTM Selectional AutoEncoders

www.mdpi.com...

a reply to: turbo8

It's the JUH-1 SOTAS (Stand Off Target Acquisition System). The skids were retractable, and the AN/APS-94 radar rotated under the aircraft. The AN/APS-94 was initially used in Vietnam to track vehicles at night.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wow, Thanks for sharing Zaphod58!

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks

a reply to: Zaphod58
My coworker is pretty happy to learn this, he thought the skids retracted and the beam rotated, but didn't know what ot was used for.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The skids were retractable

Terrific, now I have to rethink this one.😐

a reply to: Zaphod58

Close but no cigar..lol

Thx Zaphod.

originally posted by: EternalShadow
a reply to: Zaphod58

Close but no cigar..lol

Thx Zaphod.

Well I thought you were close🤷‍♂️

a reply to: turbo8

I'm no helicopter expert, but I am a big fan of the Huey.

If I were to guess the variant, I would have to say it's of the Bad-Ass type,

Sorry, that's all I have, lol

While the rest of us were still un-sticking stuck butterfly valves in our carburetors ...

1-4. Purpose and Use

a. Basic Use.

Radar Surveillance Sets AN/APS-94B and AN/APS-94C are side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) sets. The sets provide permanent aerial photoradar maps of terrestrial (ground) targets to ranges of 25, 50, or 90 kilometers (km) on either or both sides of the flight path of the aircraft in which the set is installed. The aerial photoradar maps provide information on fixed and moving targets within the maximum range of 90 kilometers. The AN/APS-94(*) provides photographic maps which are recorded by Recorder, Radar Mapping RO-225A/APS-94A on 5-inch strip film (standard film only) or by Recorder-Processor-Viewer, Radar Mapping RO-166(*)/UP (TM 11-5820-680-12), which records maps on 9-inch film (standard film only).

Source: TM 11-5895-284-12, 8 May 1970

Cheers

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

They also mounted an AN/APS-94 on the OV-1 Mohawk during Vietnam, and was used into the 90s, after upgrades. It had a 60 mile range, but a huge blind spot directly underneath the aircraft. They also looked at a roll-on system for the Coast Guard for search and rescue and enforcement missions. It's a pretty interesting system.