Some from today's fun. Unfortunately we finished all the test points so no more shooting for a while...









There's two impacts in the last one - my wingman hit his shot, too

Awesome, AWESOME pics!! Finally, I see what causes my building to rumble on a daily basis!

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Nice pictures!
You'll make me second guess my choice to go fixed wing instead of rotary.

Here are a few from my helicopter days with the Forest Service.

Hughes OH-6 Cayuse, Loach (Light Observation/Attack Helicopter) The short landing gear for a lower profile when parked behind a wall at night. Doing helispot maintenance on the Naches Ranger District 1972. This one was owned by Olympic helicopters, Boeing Field, Seattle, WA. It was olive drab until one of their students painted it.


Hughes 500 on approach to landing on a log crib used as a landing pad to shuttle chokers back on a cable logging operation. North Bend Ranger District 1973. Another Olympic Helicopters ship.


Hughes 500 on the Log crib landing pad. The tall landing gear was much better in the mountains.


Long Ranger burning Clearcut logging slash. The helitorch pumped and ignited jelled gasoline (Napalm) out the nozzle. Ukiah Ranger District, Umatilla NF about 1983.


Bell 212 spraying Spruce Bud Worms. Wallowa Whitman NF, 1988.

Great pictures tcj. The OH-6A was a LOH or Light Observation Helicopter. We just called it a Loach. Cam's OH-58 started as a LOH but became a Light Observation Attack Helicopter. The Apache is now all the Army has for human observation. Nothing will replace the maneuverability of the Loach for up close and personal human observation.

Thanks for the clarification Contact. Our pilots back then...early 1970's...were all young Vietnam Vets. I always wondered how they got the pronunciation Loach out of LOH. They had also all flown them in SE Asia. I always felt very safe flying with them.

The blue and white loach was all stripped down to keep it light. There were no seats in the back. We just sat on the floor and fastened the seat belts tight.

The door gunner on the Loach was called a torque. He sat on the floor facing out the right door. He used a M-60 without a butt plate, a M-79 grenade launcher, and a box full of various grenades.

The scout pilot could see everything the black 9th Cavalry troopers fighting Geronimo saw and he could read that intelligence as well. His spot reports were so valuable to highers that I wrote them on the Cobra canopy and called them in on the way back from a mission.

Horses interested in the water bucket test. Simms 50 gallon bucket. The old Naches Ranger Station heliport on Chinook pass. 1972


Sikorsky S55 at the same heliport. It was a "Suck hole" to get out. 1973.


Hiller 12E Soloy turbine conversion. "Spooging up" with BT to spray Spruce Bud Worms. The worms don't eat spruce needles. They eat true fir and sometimes pine needles if they run out of fir. Called Spruce Bud worm because they look like a spruce bud. Tieton air strip 1987.


Lifting off a remote helispot with a load of spray at O-Dark-Thirty.


Reloading


Just after dropping of the helitack crew at Shoe Lake near White Pass. August 1973.

Love the vintage pics!

One morning in 1973 we got a phone call from Olympic Helicopters. He said we were going to get 10 barrels of fuel delivered by Chinook that morning. The helibase was on Chinook pass so figured it only made sense for the truck from Seattle to Come that way.

A couple of the company pilots were in the Chinook unit at McChord.






There was a MAST helicopter unit (Military Assistance to Safety and Traffic) stationed at the Yakima Firing Center in 1973. My wife was the Little Bald Mountain Lookout. She snapped these photos of the MAST helicopter picking up an injured Logger at the Lookout.




Article about the Last Huey at Yakima. The First comment under the article is from one of the MAST crew from 1972-1974 http://www.northwestmilitary.com/news/a ... UH-1-Huey/

I have posted these pics before in another thread, but seem relevant here also. They are from the day I got my first taste of flight. Been hooked ever since. Dammit.

Aerial Solutions Inc. is the company that pioneered Helicopter ROW line clearance using a hydraulically powered saw slung underneath the helo.

They asked my dad to land one afternoon in our hay field in Ohio to refuel and dismantle the saw and haul it out on the truck to the next job. We got a ride out of the deal. Pretty cool experience for a third grader.









Dad and little bro: