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[I]pace[/I] the recent accident in the Grand Canyon, I have been thinking about the wonder of helicopters and the need for a thread about them.
So show us some nice helicopter pics (bonus points if they're of the SAR variety!), and/or tell us some good helicopter stories.
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The Ace of Clubs has been a familiar sight on our yearly holidays for many years now.
Now sadly been replaced by an external SAR contractors.....
Nice one, perchy. Here's another for you.
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Didier Delsalle about to land on the summit of Everest in a bog standard Eurocopter
Not much room up there ...
Two angry palm trees.
Frequently seen overhead. Low!
You dawg, I heard you like helicopters so I put a chinook on your seaking
(Rescue 137 broke down up on aonach mor somewhere so they lifted it first down to nevis range car park where I assume it had to pay £3 a day so they chinooked it away)
^ likewise at work in Farnham, although you hear them before you see them.
My helicopter story is a slightly sad one in light of.......
We went to LV on honeymoon and a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon was on the itinerary. We booked through the hotel concierge, and he asked us when we wanted to go - we said early so we had the rest of the day, but he convinced us to go mid afternoon based on seeing a sunset and the real colours of the canyon and desert, and he wasn't wrong.
The helicopter pilot was amazing, flew us over the Hoover Dam down to a landing spot in an Indian Reservation 'on the banks' of the Colorado river (yeah right - I had a good arm then and lobbing pebbles at it, I was still about 200 yards short...... stuff is BIGLY BIG in America) - where we had champagne and a picnic. I still remember flying low over the desert (I don't know what low really is, it just felt it) towards the rim and then suddenly it felt like the earth had just disappeared, we were so high up as the canyon appeared below us.
Then a flight back as the sun was setting, exactly as predicted by the concierge, and then knowing we were honeymooning the pilot went 'off route' and flew back into Vegas from the other end so he could fly us right down the strip, in the dark (and he got a decent tip in return). And to cap it all, we were both in earphones so he could talk to us over the noise of the fan, and as we got onto the strip he had basically an old car stereo plumbed into the headphone system, so we got the full Viva Las Vegas soundtrack as we skimmed the tops of the casinos.
Simply amazing, and I'd recommend Papillon helicopters to anyone 🙁
Does being in the door of a Whacker when it spat the rear g’box over No Mans land count?
No visual for the pilot, 30+ guys in the water and he kept it in the air long enough to slam the arse into the mud rather than the wet stuff.
Copilot blew the tether as I couldn’t reach it being face down and then picked me up under his arm and ran. (Bugger was a huuuuge bloke)
Neither of them paid for drinks in the mess for a VERY long time!
BITD I used to live near a private airfield in deepest Florida.. and used to see plenty of these little things whizzing around.. I once said to myself that I’d love one, but I’m not that keen on flying.
I’m fortunate enough to work on these crazy things at Leonardo in yeovil (what was Westlands helicopters) so very familiar with sea king, merlin/eh101/cormorant, and also recently the aw189 which are now being used for U.K. coastguard duties 😊
i do like a good heli story!
der derdedederrr der dede derr derr de derr derr derrr de de de derrrr
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I love the Hind Mil Mi 24. Scariest helicopter ever! Unless you're the Mujaheddin. In which case you just blow it out of the sky with your american bazooka.
When I was in the ATC as a kid one of the best weeks we had was at RAF Odiham, spending the week dossing about in helicopters. The highlight was taking off at 1 in the morning and buzzing across Salisbury Plain at ridiculously low-level with the side doors open in these 😀
Also playing footy in the back of Chinooks. Happy days
Emergency landing in a chinook whilst a lanny and trailer were winched underneath certainly shakes you up especially when you are hovering for ages in pitch black.
Airmobile for 4 yrs whilst in Germany loved it but not in bad weather as it made for long days in the back of a 4 tonner.
Yanks are mental btw did not trust them one bit
[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4760/25376579827_4fc9c6e8ae_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4760/25376579827_4fc9c6e8ae_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/EErB5p ]13775537_10154399456931474_4536596026296379797_n[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/nzrich/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr
Chinooks are rock stars.
The Air Zermat docu on Redbull tv is pretty compelling viewing...
+1 Rickmeister.
and
(Not my vid)
A couple of great days skiing in the Kootenays, some drops we had to land on one skid, hop out, chopper transferred to other skid so the guide could get the skis out. We also had a chainsaw with us so that we could clear the landing pad for the next drop.
I love the Hind Mil Mi 24. Scariest helicopter ever! Unless you’re the Mujaheddin. In which case you just blow it out of the sky with your american bazooka.
Wouldn’t even take that, a sniper could put a couple of rounds through the screen because it didn’t have armoured glass for the crew.
Back in the early 70’s I was on holiday on a caravan park in Beesands, a little village in Start Bay, and one cloudy night there was a lot of noise and a bright light shining down into the village.
Everyone came out of the nearby houses and caravans, wondering what the hell was going on, with a helicopter flying backwards and forwards with a light on.
Eventually it hovered over the village green and came in to land.
The crew got out, and a little while after a Navy Landrover turned up, picked them up, and they drove off.
Next morning, the crew, a little the worse for wear, drove back into the village and got ready to take off.
Had a chat with one of them, and it turned out they were on their way back to Dartmouth, and found the cloud base was too low to allow them to fly over the hills surrounding their base, so they were forced to put down on the nearest flat piece of ground along the coast.
First time I’d been really close to any sort of helicopter other than in a museum, so it left a big impression.
It was only a Westland Scout, but impressive to see land and take off from only a few feet away, much more common nowadays what with police and ambulance choppers in regular use, and thanks to the Wiltshire Air Ambulance my brother got to Frenchay A&E fast enough to survive a motorbike accident the other side of Devizes.
Wonderful machines, don’t know how we’d manage without them.
Norwegian Air Sea Rescue practices winching from ferry deck
I used to work RAF Merlins and did a couple of trips to Bastion with them, always amazed me when they came back and the crewman would say "think we took some hits" quick look round to find the holes, open the panels up to find the destruction inside.
Lot of respects for the crews flying round into hot areas, knowing there was a huge chance they would be hit day after day.
Never easy to fix em either.
No story but a chinook flew over the house yesterday, bloody awesome things and made the house shake! Certainly not something toy see every day.
My old boss used to work on radio, radar, jammers and the like on a variety of kit, Vulcans, Harriers, Lightning’s, Lynx’s and Chinooks. He was on exercise one day over Germany in the back of Chinook flying “nape of the Earth” when, his words “the bad gearbox light” came on and they ARRIVED in the nearest field. Most people needed new filllings it was that definite a landing.
They also nearly lost a Chinook over Germany when a German eagle took offence to it being in its airspace and rammed the cockpit taking out most of the pilots controls and windscreen.
Incidentally the best helicopter display I saw was at Helitech 88 or 89 at Redhill. The Russians came to visit with a Hind, Havoc (I think) and their huge 7 bladed thing. The Hind had apparently been stripped out and the pilots had a very er cavalier regard for crowd proximity and altitude limits. This thing tore a hole in the sky. Very impressive. Incidentally the Mujahadeen only got to grips with them after getting US MANPADS.
All helicopters are vulnerable to small arms, for want of being politically correct the fuzzy wuzzies in Afghanistan took out an entire 30 ship Air Cavalry Apache unit with nothing but mobile phones, Ak’s and RPG’s. They suckered them in with high volumes of cell traffic and went dead as they rolled in over the town. They pointed they’re weapons up and let rip as the Apaches were overhead. 2 Apaches crashed leaving and the other 28 were so badly damaged as too remove the unit from combat status completely. Most of them badly damaged.
They held armed forces day in stirling a.couple.of years back which included an amazing demonstration by an apache and a puma. Got some on film somewhere truly amazing stuff.
That apache was fast, loud and butt ugly!
Edit-not my footage but shows what it was like ok.
I was on the airfield at RAF Odiham as the very first RAF Chinook landed, having come in from Southampton docks (where it had been unloaded and assembled). My Dad was on 240 OCU so he'd been doing some of the checks at the docks, then he took me onto the base when he went to see it come in.
I was... about 10? 11?
He then moved to 18 Sqn in time for the Falklands but managed to avoid being sent down there.
Fathomer, every single day here!
Apaches, too.
Spent a day Heli-skiing on honeymoon. The pilot heard it was our honeymoon so on the flight back to base invited Sweamrs up to the front to get the full view... but she's afraid of heights and gets motion sickness... So whilst the pilot thought he was giving her a once in a lifetime ride and close up views of cliffs etc all she really wanted him to do was fly straight and level back to the base.....
@ Saxonrider, is that last photo of yours , North Cornwall, near Millook and Crackington?
Model one.
I nearly got run into by a chinook - that wasn't fun! I was flying a glider pre-start at the Bicester gliding regional competition and a chnook came through the start line (roughly 50 gliders in about 1 mile of airspace getting ready to race). I had to dive out of the way and could very clearly hear the noise of it - I've never heard another aircraft in the air before, it was bloody close. Pilot gave no sign of seeing me at all although it's kind of understandable - my glider only had 26meter wings! (this one -
On the positive side, my best man re trained as a helicopter pilot and now instructor (flies out of Leicester). WHile he was getting his hours up he used to fly down to my house, drop into the garden (I have a small paddock that came with the house) and take myself, Mrsbits and micro bits for fly to the cheddar gorge and back. Bloody good fun.
These I like in an "a10 "function-confers-beauty" kind of way
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I would never put up anything morbid, so I can assure you that no one was hurt in this clip, but GOOD LORD is it scary!
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Also, this is obviously a skateboarding vid but little hekalopters are cool too
(if it doesn't link to the right bit, skip to 6.20 for the whirly bits. Or don't)
Many moons ago I was fortunate to get a lift in an Army Lynx. There was only the two pilots so I was first in and was handed the headset and seated between the pilot seats which gave me a fantastic view. The pilot was a major which was unusual as normally they were NCOs but this chap was maintaining his hours. And he could fly. I think he really was destined for the Red Arrows.
En route he skimmed trees, flopped over islands as he flew feet from the surface of Lough Erne, missed power lines by what looked like inches and even did a bit of a roller coaster climb and sudden nose dive. The entire windscreen seemed to fill with hills and other really hard things as we sped towards them only to suddenly climb over and down the other side. I thought I was going to die.
And he sang to himself the entire time as he literally threw the Lynx around like a kite in a storm.
Once landed he swore us to secrecy saying " not a word chaps, okay?"
Another memorable day involved a training day hosted by RAF and the instructor explained the alarm sequence and procedures in the event of a malfunction. He finished very seriously assuring us us that following this the aircraft would "glide to the ground" and pointed to the least aerodynamic aircraft ever...a Wessex parked outside the hut. We didn't really believe him.
A few weeks after that I was in a Lynx that had an engine fire about 30 feet from landing. Alarms went off etc but the pilot just carried on with the landing and wasn't too excited. Best thing was a few days later watching it being towed away by a Chinook. 🙂
This one is quite attractive:
Sikorsky CH-148
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Had my last flight in a Seaking around 1989 when in the cadets, we landed and got out and a film crew got in they were filming a series called Rescue, they flew up to Creag Meagaidh and crashed. There are loads of pics on google just I never figured out how to post on here.
The video at the start of this thread of the Chinook lifting the Seaking down off the hill was taken by my mate and he's just spent a couple of days in Aberdeenshire filming and photographing a Skycrane doing electric pole work for sse, think it was transported from the US to Montrose in containers?
Disappointing that they didn't carry it over with an even bigger helicopter. Possibly suspended under an even bigger one, or just winched from the ISS
I really liked the one that brought me home last night (S92), but suspect I won't be so keen on the one to take me away again in 3 weeks time.
After over 20 years of flying in the things to various offshore installations in various countries I have had some moments where I truly thought things were going to end badly, but in my head the benefits and opportunities the job brings to my family outweigh the potential for disaster.
I actually had a couple of flying lessons in a R22? a few years back, gave me a huge respect for the skills these pilots have, but also made me realise just how quickly things could get very serious in the right (wrong) circumstance.
Helicopter: A thousand parts spinning around at high speed looking for an excuse to fail!
Have a look on YouTube for xmas tree helicopters for examples of proper flying.
Love / Hate relationship with this one. Takes me to work and brings me home again every 4 weeks...
Always loved the lynx. Was doing a job at R31 (or 13, can't remember) above Newry. Bessbrook to job in a Puma. Straight forward. Did the job and were told we were vizzed in and to wait for next available chopper.
A lynx coming back from Armagh said they'd pick us up. Having never been in a lynx I jumped in, rifle pointing down then tried to find seat strap. See the door gunner s**** and speak into head set. Pilot looks over his shoulder and back. Door gunner s****s again.
Next thing I know we've shot upwards and what could only be described as a rotating fall to the side of the hill. We dropped like a stone following the contours and then practically flew below tree top height back up the river to bessbrook. I Never go on rollercoaster now because they'll never match the buzz I got from that.
Also had a Puma land on my shoulder in Norway. Because of the white out the crew need a ground reference when landing. You stand with your arms out until the plexi glass is about to head but you then curl up in a ball. It was at that point the pilot ground my shoulder into the snow.
I forgave him because he was friends with our chief instructor and we blagged a morning of heli skiing north of Voss. Tax payers money well spent.
Can I ask those of you who seem to love helicopters so much, do you actually fly in them with any sort of regularity?
Small, cramped, noisy, dangerous metal boxes that have a fast spinning knife above your head. If I didn't occasionally have to I certainly wouldn't ever want to fly in one.
A few years ago I was riding to avebury via a farm track.
I had stopped off for rest when I heard a helicopter sound,it didn't sound like your average chopper that was for sure.
Was blown away (not literally) when an apache longbow appeared over the horizon and proceeded to practise hiding behind tree cover e.t.c
Was watching them for at least 5 mins hovering e.t.c it was bloody awesome i had to say both apache and the sound it made.
Am glad that I wasn't deemed a target lol
Bloody autocorrect
Ive flown on a few of the military choppers....
Puma, landed at a pretend explosion site as part of my EOD course. Horrible noisy and cramped thing !
Merlin, used to be a Sqn Armourer on 78 Sqn so flew in these quite often for gunning sorties. So smooth when flying and used to send me to sleep.
Chinook, My fave of all time, was out in Basrah in 2004 and managed to get a "Jolly" with the aircrew to go to a gunning range in the desert. Unbeknown to me the Pilot was a SF jockey and took great pleasure in trying to make us all sick by climbing and throwing it over the top quite often. Whilst this was happening one of the loadies had two straps and was doing somersaults on the ramp !!. We also had to divert into Basrah Palace on the way back to collect some high roanking chap which was a bit of an eye opener !
Fast roped out of these things - always felt like the feker was about to shake itself to bits......whirly things of death!
I once sat and watched a Chinook lifting a CH-53... it wasn’t very happy about it but the noise was impressive.....
The chinook is my favourite way to travel. They have legroom, room for luggage and great ventilation. Not so keen on the Blackhawk mind, it's more sporty looking, but no headroom and quite cramped in the back.
Thought you would have like Bell Huey's with a name like that...
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Whilst this was happening one of the loadies had two straps and was doing somersaults on the ramp !!. We also had to divert into Basrah Palace on the way back to collect some high roanking chap which was a bit of an eye opener !
One of my old 7 Para RHA lads got a rollocking for basically surfing out of the back of one, hanging out the back with two load lines clipped to him, OK until he buffeted and slammed into ramp and broke 3 ribs, meaning he couldn't join us for the next jolly at the Iraqi beach.
Mate in the navy also tells a story of a Chinook with an underslung Marines Pinzgauer dropping it on to deck of ship (probably HMS Ocean as he served on there but not sure) only to realise that one of the hook-up team hadn't put handbrake on Pinzgauer, so as it was released, the vehicle rolled down the deck straight into the sea.
Plus my brother in law is an electrician on Chinook's at Odiham, it worries me the amount of gaffa tape he has (MOD stuff is good for going tubeless though)
Oooo! Nice shots, B.A.Nana!
Small, cramped, noisy, dangerous metal boxes that have a fast spinning knife above your head. If I didn’t occasionally have to I certainly wouldn’t ever want to fly in one.
My mate flies passenger jets for the world's favourite airline. His mate from home flies helicopters, demoing mainly for rich people but also some air ambulance / police contract world.
Quite entertaining bantz listening to the two of them, but my fixed wing mate has managed to convince me that being in a box with a big fan on isn't so much a case of if it happens, but when.
I make big fans, they don't fail often but when they do...........
Quite entertaining bantz listening to the two of them, but my fixed wing mate has managed to convince me that being in a box with a big fan on isn’t so much a case of if it happens, but when.
But couldn't the same thing be said about turbo props and other, propeller-driven aircraft?
"But couldn’t the same thing be said about turbo props and other, propeller-driven aircraft?"
Consider the difference between the failure of the engines on an aircraft with wings and one without wings. One of them has significantly better potential outcomes than the other.
Stone vs glider?
I was working around canary wharf on Monday and a Chinook was flying around. My theory was it maybe dropped some guys in for the city airport bomb. Awesome machine.
Always loved the Westland wessex, in a parallel universe where this forum doesnt suck I have put up a picture. Unfortunatley in this one I cant (insert sad face)
Any ways its a cool chopter, perhaps a wizard or mage posseses such skills as to find a suitable image & share it with us.
Consider the difference between the failure of the engines on an aircraft with wings and one without wings. One of them has significantly better potential outcomes than the other.
Why not fit both?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SJqcVVnk3DM
Taken with a compact camera, was fairly close!
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Flying offshore in the early naughties out of Macae in northern Rio de Janeiro state the pilot came in to the end of safety briefing to give his safety talk where he said "we will take off to the north and do a sharp left turn while climbing hard before the end of the runway, due to being shot at from the favela at the end of the runway" To which I asked "how do you know they have been shooting at you?"
"Oh, they hit us a couple of times"
Can we do some oddball Russian choppers?
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Oooo! Nice shots, B.A.Nana!
Birk with little climbing experience took a very pretty Canadian work college up an easy multi-pitch climb (we presumed he was hoping to get his leg over, would like to think he blew it, big time). The crux near the top was easy but exposed, he fell apart. We found him on the phone to Llanberis MRT and we agreed to rescue them. Then got a call that a heli would pick them up, so sorted them out for heli rescue (secured all their gear and instructed them on signals to heli crew). We climbed the crux and then got a shout from below that the heli wanted to be reassigned and would we intervene, we said no (everyone climbing back down the crux seemed to us like it would increase the whole danger). We sat at a safe distance, got the sandwiches out and waited for the photo op.
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(Last of the Russians...)
Spent an amazing 7 years hanging out that back of this old girl, definitely the highlight of my career.
Worked for a while at as buyer in the back office of a fly fishing store near Reading. Took a phone call from a customer looking for directions. Fairly standard stuff, except he was flying himself in by helicopter. I opened up Google Maps, switched to satellite view, and told him to follow the M4, hang a left at the railway just before before j12, and land on the grass by the first lake he came to after the station. Old school air navigation?! Our customers were quite wealthy...
Once spent a memorable cold evening on the side of a snow-clad Snowdon, after witnessing an accident and helping out, being blown around by the spindrift from a Sea King. They're rather large when hovering above your head, aren't they!
Regularly see Chinooks, as with the others in the north Hants, west Surrey area. They are even bigger, and the noise always makes me look, just like the noise of Concorde always made me want to see it.
MrsH was in hospital recently with a ruptured disc, me and the boys were visiting one evening and the hangar doors to the air ambulance were open so I took them to the compound gate to have a nosey. The air crew guy who was on call, and obviously bored stupid, asked if we wanted to come in and have a look. My 6-year-old was well chuffed he got to sit in the pilot's seat.
(It's a Eurocopter AS350 B2 'Squirrel')
Not a great pic but made three boys very happy!