oh chinook

As much as I like the Wokka, this bad-boy just seems that little bit better…

Yes, they’re a ‘workhorse’, but a pretty versatile workhorse. Great bit of engineering.

Indeed. But hardly worthy of more than a brief glance, let alone a comment. Just like a removal van wouldn’t be. See now?

No you’re racist.

Yeah, but you know…when I see a chinook, I’m just reminded of all the innocent….

🙂

…only joking.

They’re great…but I agree that they look like they shouldn’t be flying.

One of them buzzed the beach at West Wittering the other week then went out into the Solent. It then pretty much parked itself in the water and took off after a few mins. I guess it was on exercise with the guys from the SBS.
Looked like it was doing this from a distance but I could not see the boat.

Chinook landing on water and the SBS

I used to work in a studio on an industrial estate in Calne, looking out over fields directly up to RAF Lyneham, and there would often be interesting stuff stooging around, C130’s doing Kay San drops, which is pretty spectacular, and other stuff. One afternoon a Puma went past at speed, lower than Lyneham on the hill behind, and close enough to see clearly panel lines and rivets and the pilot, which was impressive, but nothing compared to the Chinook that went past at about the same hight going like the clappers banking round trees and keeping below the height of the surrounding hills like Bremhill. Totally shocking, seeing something that normally chugs around at height like a horse-drawn wagon suddenly behaving like a Ducati motorbike. Saw them in a whole new light.
[edit] just had a look on Viewranger, and Portemarsh Industrial Estate is on the 100m contour, and there’s a trig point on Lyneham base at 156m, so the Chinook was below 183ft, probably about 80-100 as it was avoiding tall trees. Impressive in a thing that size at that speed.
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Whatever the rights and wrongs of our involvement in Afghanistan, this is pretty damn impressive.

Pre-flight checks at speed (about 4 mins in), prior to evacuating a serious casualty.

Hats off.

Following the Thames…

LOL – happy days!

heres a pic of one with the kopp etchells effect

http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977777774

They are truly impressive beasts.

Every time I see or hear one flying around here (we are on one of their night flying training routes) I can’t help thinking that there are a lot of people who must have been mightily glad of their swift arrival when called out in Afghanistan.

LOL – happy days!

Heh! You like that one, innit? 😉

I saw one on the A27 a few weeks back, it was so close I could see through the windows etc…seemed like mere metres away…

…it was on the back of a low loader though, no blades, in fact it looked like a bare shell. It looked freshly painted, assume its been re-furbed or something. I think it was coastguard colours, either yellow or white/red, just remember it not being the usual dark green.

Get them flying over here quite often, the noise they make is quite distinctive and quite impressive.

How is your mate in the MOD Elfin?

Been a few of them up the valley here these last few weeks, few Puma’s as well, seem to get lower each time they pass.. great sight and sound 😀

my ideal job would be a chinook pilot i reckon.
love heavy hardware.

Wacka wacka wacka wacka

Fly over my work most days, along with a fair few Apaches and lots of smaller stuff. Lots of fast jets too 😉

Always low as well. Makes the desks rattle

How is your mate in the MOD Elfin?

He’s fine, last I heard. Got a bit fat though, and gone bald.

It was a colleague of his I spoke to about the flying along the River thing however. Strangely, a Chinook pilot I spoke to at the 999 Spectacular in Vicky Park kind of backed up what he said, too. 😉

Where is Victaulic these days anyway?

Used to fly over our place in Andover all the time in the late 80s, noisy b*ggers!

In LHS’ piccys, thats my mates dragging the kit out of the back!

once saw 11 of them in close formation flying at circa 1000ft alongside my car on a motorway in south korea.
they had apaches at the front and back with two F15’s circling the whole group at speed.

wont forget that one.
wish id had my camera

see a chinook going over fairly low every now and again. big bstard. I like ’em! do they go from RAF Valley to somewhere in North England?

Earlier this year i was enjoying the view of the Potomac when two Marine 1s flew overhead very low and incredibly fast as the banked from the Mall to the river. Two minutes later another flew overhead and bank to head off in the other direction. It wasn’t the noise i noticed, but the shear speed they flew at.

What type of ‘copter is that in the pic below? My son and I were boarding a couple of months ago at Mawgan Porth at about 7 PM. There were maybe 10 people in the water and a really low and dense fog. I heard a really low drone and then saw and what I think was one of these come round the North cliff face. It flew really slowly over the top of us, no more than 20m. Very eerie, little downdraft and amazingly quiet considering the size of the thing.

Rumour has it that No Fuss Events are using a Chinook for heli bike uplifts at next year’s Macavalanche at glencoe

Was in one once while the pilots did a bit of evasive flying to.avoid ground fire.while traveling pretty low thru a valley its an odd sight to see the tops of trees from above out of the opposite window while hanging from your seat by your straps lol great bits of kit

I’ve often wondered about Chinooks as a gunship, a bit like the Magic Dragons in Vietnam and the Spectre AH-C130’s in Afghanistan. Plenty of room inside for several 7.62 rotary cannon, and maybe a Bofors.

Anyway, you’re missing the point: It’s a lumbering workhorse.

Really?

Neighbours moving house, yesterday.

I’ve often wondered about Chinooks as a gunship, a bit like the Magic Dragons in Vietnam and the Spectre AH-C130’s in Afghanistan. Plenty of room inside for several 7.62 rotary cannon, and maybe a Bofors.

There you go, guns a go go. Not sure that ‘Birth Control’ was a particularly pc name either..

Rescuing the rescuer

Crell

thats a CH53 Super Stallion I believe.

What you don’t want to see in your rear-view mirror

Beamers, it’s actually an MH-53J Pave Low. Essentially a special forces version of the Super Stallion and just generally awesome.

When I were a nipper in Suffolk, the USAF used to have a couple knocking around at Bentwaters/Woodbridge to help collect any A10 pilots and they were just amazing to watch fly overhead.

2 Chinooks passed low over the metropolis that is Redditch yesterday, one may have been the one that landed at the QE from RD’s original post, not sure why they had to try and sneak under radar coverage, estimate they were approx 50m above ground.

Kind of like a Chinook, but able to carry 91 tonnes at 350mph.

Lun-class ekranoplan

Edit: OK, so it may have problems doing VTOL medevacs. 😉

Edit: OK, so it may have problems doing VTOL medevacs.

or fly higher than a few metres…

WIG are cool though

you can see the sea monsters parked up if you look on google maps satellite

Nuke – there’s loads in Dorking / Westcott as they all fly in to say goodnight to my son most nights 😀

(plus as mentioned they have permission to land at the foot of the N. Downs in the evenings & it fits in between Gatwick / Heathrow civililian traffic)

rootes1 – that’s quite incredible…

Monster indeed.

Apparently the original idea was to use them as invasion craft – they were intended to ship entire divisions and/or armour at 300+ mph under radar levels. Quite a scary prospect, really.

From that Ekranoplan thread (which works on this post and is worth checking out despite being in Russian):

and

What a beast!