contactflying wrote:If your Huey was prior service and you can find the old military number, the first two digits were its birth year in the last century.

1982 https://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/Saf-Sec-Sur/2/ ... hSimp.aspx

Yes, in the NMARNG out of Santa Fe and doing actual medevac (Dustoff, I was too much 1st Cav oriented) for the big Army training exercises at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert. Slow turning rotor blade is much like an airplane deceleration to near zero ground speed on short final. The slow moving wing gets tossed about in either case. In airplanes we have the anti-turn control, the rudder, to keep the wing level. The helicopter's cyclic could do the same if the rotor would stay in one place. But adding pitch out near the end, like the airplane's aileron, would cause adverse yaw as well. Maybe we should put a reliable rudder on the helicopter. No, that wouldn't prevent a blade strike or mast bump.

Prevention, is always the best tactic. So the crew chief held the blade in moderately strong wind as well as in a really nasty one. So no, I don't have any destructive blade strike war stories. The Army has a safety film about a ridgid standing Major talking to the ducked down pilot under the end of a slow turning rotor. It gets within inches of the Major's head.

tjc,

Bell evidently changed the serial number system after Vietnam since we haven't got to 2031 yet. Anyway, if prior Army it would have been Army 213. Everything I flew in Vietnam or the Guard started out 65, 66, 67, 68, or near those numbers. Made for civilian may have used a different numbering system. Also, I am old and senile.

Jim

Karmutzen wrote:Any war stories starting up (or shutting down) in high winds? Anybody hold your blade until you powered it out of his grasp? We subbed a 412 in Goose Bay for those windy trips north. Still rolling drums?

Our company limits are good for keeping us out of trouble, no rotor start/stop at 45kts clean air or 35kts if gusty (max 10kts so 25G35kts).

That said when it gets closer to that having someone hold the blade on start its good for some reassurance. I haven't had to push the wind limits much out here but heard many stories from the guys out of Goose Bay having to turn around since they couldn't shut down on the pad due to winds. Even landing can be hard on some of the cliff sites, once they tried but have full collective down and were still climbing!

My worst wind story was actually in an R44. Doing a news patrol and saw a shimmer coming in from the west. Was a microburst kinda event, not sure what to really call it since it lasted longer and was basically a wave of high winds crashing out of the mountains. Shimmer was all the dust it was picking up on the way. Anyway managed to beat mostly it to the airport and touched down with winds of 53G58kts. Not really good time to shut down but also end of the shift so machine was on fumes and would be shutting off on it's own soon enough. Blades were sailing for a good 30min since the winds took a while to go back to normal (last report before I shut the radio off was 55G62). The R44 has these little plastic(?) cushion block things for mast bump stops, both of them were firmly indented but no actual damage done. Closest I've ever come to knocking off my own tail boom, probably just pure luck and the fact the gust spread never went over 10kts!

As far as drums go we don't use them on the NWS unless something bad happened to the fuel. The sites all run on Jet A so same fuel for the generators goes right into the helicopter if we need it. Did have to use some drums in the summer because a couple beach tanks had fuel unapproved for aviation use due to issues with the FSII not being up to spec. Silly cause we don't really need it with out oil-fuel heat exchanger.

I've told this wave story before, but the Army Mountain Flying School at Ft. Carson had a Huey go from just off Butts AAF to 17,500' in a wave at flat pitch. So when I went through the school, we had oxygen just like the zoomies. Since we were flying our NMARNG Hueys, they put an ammo box between the back of the armored seats with the bottles.

Each Saturday morning a bunch of local pilots gather at the airport pilot's Lounge to have coffee and donuts and tell lies. Today this R 22 was sitting in front of the lounge. It was a guy on his way to Canada waiting for the frost to melt off his rotor blades. We all listened while he told us about himself. It was a a very enjoyable morning.

Springtime means recurrent mountain training. B212 with bearpaws.

https://youtu.be/K3xfMdFcM_A

Ski season just wrapped on the BC coast, high landings are 8200’, start at sea level at the lodge and base. Good job for B3s VSI’s pinned up and down all day.

Ardent wrote:Ski season just wrapped on the BC coast, high landings are 8200’, start at sea level at the lodge and base. Good job for B3s VSI’s pinned up and down all day.

Cool picture. Flying skiers looks like fun, but how in the world do you get your start with that gig? I don't have the time for it at the moment but every job hauling skiers seems to want experience hauling skiers.

When we hire ski pilots, we look for 5000hrs + in the mountains. We bring in two contractors each ski season, one 7k the other 11k, both career mountain guys. With that background, it’s rather a gimme.

It’s a hard gig and one I wouldn’t recommend seeking out, not a ton of flying, winter covers, bad weather. The reason for all the barriers is the risk, two machines a year on average are lost heli skiing in BC. There are the good sides of course too, you forget the bad after 9 months.

We have to pay $5500 a week, per machine to insure them. It’s the insurance approval on pilots that’s hardest to get.

Great info. Thank you.

Hey Ardent, I have been watching a new TV show called "Timber Titans" about logging in BC. last night, March 24th, they were building log helipads on steep hillsides on Vancouver Island. There was a Black A Star using one. Was that you?

Oregon weather is fabulous today. Flew around this morning and was reminded how helicopter friendly Oregon is.

^^^
Ted,
Is that 00S McKenzie Bridge State?
pat

iPat wrote:^^^
Ted,
Is that 00S McKenzie Bridge State?
pat

Hello Pat! Glad to see you onboard Sir!

Affirmative: 00S, McKenzie Bridge State

Note on video: Turn audio volume off if you don’t like funky ‘80’s music (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Drives_Me_Crazy)!

Arrived Oregon on 16-APR and there was an ice sheet covering my truck. Had to preheat and stretch the belts on the R44 to ease the stress starting the engine. It was definitely cold in comparison to So Cal.

+3 days…. Today 19-APR: Ambient temperature is 67F with a dew point spread of 31F on the coast. Super dry conditions for this area. I decided to land at some favorite LZ’s…cool dry air = low manifold pressure and great performance.

Coastal sand dunes in Oregon. Reminds me of Fraser Island, QLD.