When I was stationed at Ft Bliss, TX (El Paso) we had a junior Warrant Officer (I'll just refer to him as Mr. X) assigned to my platoon who was our unanimous pick for the next "Darwin Award" winner - we were that sure that he would kill himself sometime soon.

So one day Mr. X and his crew chief were out "joy riding" across the desert in an OH-58, coming back from a cross-country, when the crew chief spotted a coyote running down below them. Mr. X decided it would be fun to drop down really low and chase it for a while. Everything was fine until the coyote ran up a sand dune and Mr. X somehow managed to just barely clip the coyote with his main rotor blade... Blood and guts everywhere, and the rotorwash and sand dune placement ensured that a bunch of it wound up on Mr X and his crew chief (who where flying with the doors removed due to the heat) - not to mention all over the helicopter. Both main rotor blades had to be replaced, and Mr. X "should" have been severely reprimanded for flying it home instead of landing immediately and calling for help...

Somehow, our Mr X didn't lose his wings over that incident, but was in the dog-house - big time - with the CO, who assigned him to "Duty" every other night for about 3-4 weeks... So one night, he was assigned as Officer of the Day (OD), and was called by the Field Officer of the Day (FOD) to come sit in for him while the FOD went to inspect the guard detail at the ammo dump. So, Mr. X was sitting in the Regimental Commander's office, wearing his Smith & Wesson pistol in a shoulder holster, when he noticed that the Colonel had a really cool western gunslinger-style holster and ceremonial pistol mounted to a plaque on the wall.

The temptation was just to great for our Mr. X... He takes the gunbelt off the plaque and straps it on, admiring himself in the full-length mirror, then drops his Smith & Wesson into the holster, and begins practicing his "quick-draw" while watching himself in the mirror... After a few tries, he's getting faster and faster, until finally he slaps leather, aims at himself in the mirror, and... accidentally pulls the trigger - forgetting that his pistol was loaded. He shot the Colonel's mirror, and the bullet passed through the thin wall into the outer office, where an NCO was stationed. The bullet passed through the chair he was sitting in (fortunately missing the NCO who was leaning over trying to see what was going on in the Colonel's office), and then "killed" the Colonel's fax machine. (This was back in the days when fax machines were VERY expensive and somewhat of a novelty. The Regimental Commander was VERY proud of his fax machine - almost as proud as he was about the pistol and gunbelt that General Patton (!) had given him as a very junior officer when he served as Patton's aide.)

Mr. X survived killing the coyote, but he did not survive playing with the Colonel's gunbelt, killing the Colonel's fax machine, and almost killing the duty NCO... We had to hear the story from the duty NCO, because none of us ever saw Mr. X again...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk[/quote]

Simple answer: $$$$$

That said, some APHIS crews do use helicopters, but most of this stuff is done with fixed wing.

MTV[/quote]

Interesting......presumably because the searching is the majority of the flight time? As I would have thought the extra cost of helo would more than be made up with in efficiency when actually shooting? Are targets few and far between?
Unless heli time in the U.S is grossly different from us.
We pay around $850 USD for R44's and $1100 USD per hr for Hughes 500 - both common aerial shooting platforms. Compare that to around $570 USD to hire something like a C185 per hr, not many cub type aircraft on Air Transport to compare.

Our terrain and the fact we recover a lot of animals precludes straight 'search and destroy' hunting which by default requires helicopters.

I carry out a lot of aerial shooting for my job and the idea that you guys routinely do it in fixed wing intrigues me!!

Lots of R22/44's are used for predator/hog control in my region. It's not uncommon at all. I fly a super cub for predator control/cattle herding/ game surveys. Use the wagon some, but it is not well suited to these missions IMO.

It is much more economical to use the cub vs. heli, but in terrain it is way more difficult to line up a shot. I use a paintball gun to haze the cows that get stuck in a draw or hillside. That way no worries about hitting the strut or prop without a mount that limits the guns range of movement. I only do this flying solo, with the exception of game surveys. It can get super dangerous in a heartbeat trying to shoot and fly at the same time, especially in terrain.

For those wondering, even for non-commercial ops the pilot must have an Aerial Wildlife Management Permit (AWMP), the aircraft/s must be registered on the permit, and an LOA for the property must be on file to conduct the flight. Quarterly reporting of the flights are also required, in TX anyway.

Do not shoot out of your airplane without the proper paperwork, very bad idea. Remote triggered devices are a huge no-no with the ATF, so don't go there.

Here's a link to a funding effort for the deceased pilot's young family. Can only imagine how tough this loss is, especially just before Christmas. Tailwinds Mr. Belden.

If any of you need to get off Santa's naughty list, making a contribution here might be a good start.

https://www.gofundme.com/grant-belden-family-fund


I second Skaly's admonition against even thinking about shooting from an aircraft unless you are fully papered up. If not, you're risking both your ticket and forfeiture of your airplane if caught, not to mention the risk of killing yourself if not trained by someone who really knows what they're doing.

Here are a few cautionary tales from the archives, including some really high-time pilots:

https://www.abqjournal.com/597071/usda-plane-crew-was-terminating-coyotes-before-fatal-crash-near-raton.html

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/01/news/mn-34944

RanchPilot wrote:Here's a link to a funding effort for the deceased pilot's young family. Can only imagine how tough this loss is, especially just before Christmas. Tailwinds Mr. Belden.

If any of you need to get off Santa's naughty list, making a contribution here might be a good start.

https://www.gofundme.com/grant-belden-family-fund


I second Skaly's admonition against even thinking about shooting from an aircraft unless you are fully papered up. If not, you're risking both your ticket and forfeiture of your airplane if caught, not to mention the risk of killing yourself if not trained by someone who really knows what they're doing.

Here are a few cautionary tales from the archives, including some really high-time pilots:

https://www.abqjournal.com/597071/usda-plane-crew-was-terminating-coyotes-before-fatal-crash-near-raton.html

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/01/news/mn-34944

Done! This is beyond sad. Grant was killed on his birthday. Leaves behind a wife and 2 young sons.

https://www.gofundme.com/grant-belden-family-fund