Doors off ... the way it should be on a hot summer day.

NOTE: OAT @ 1000’ MSL indicated 94F over Toledo Airport!

Come ride again with the Sunday Morning Cowboy!

One of my fondest memories is feeling the temperature rise from cool to extremely hot when descending to land with the doors off on a hot summer day.

I worked on a Forest Service helitack crew in the early 1970s. We had this Hughes 500 for a couple fire seasons. It's a 1969 model and is the only one I remember with the short landing gear. I did some research on it and found it has been renumbered twice, and is currently registered in Arizona. We lived in a bunk house with the helicopter parked in the horse pasture next to it and prided ourselves on getting to fires and containing them fast. No GPS, no LORAN, just a 1/2 inch scale forest service map in the right front seater's lap. He would point which way for the pilot to head.

The Ranger District was 375,000 acres and had lookouts then and a "Farmers" system of crank phones. When we heard the office ring...one long ring...we would listen in to see if it was the lookout reporting a fire. If it was a fire call, the pilot...a young Vietnam vet...would get his fire shirt on and start the helicopter. From the time the lookout spotted a smoke until we were on the fire averaged about 10 minutes. The pilot would shut down the helicopter, grab a shovel and start digging fire line with the rest of us.

Sorry for the thread drift.

TCJ

Excellent addition to this thread! Thank you!

MVFR so stayed local and enjoying the morning gloom. Really love this ship!