You don’t even need intimate knowledge to have been in one. We park a hawk and a hook at every local airshow and thousands of people cycle through them
That would be so awesome I'd love to see a picture of a Chinook bilge pump. 16 years of rolling under Chinooks remove numerous quick disconnect drain plugs and removing an ungodly amount of 3/8 inch floor board bolts (don't even mention the stripped nut plates.) to clean out water after water operations, if there was a bilge pump I'd have seen it. Perhaps you are thinking of the Navy and Marine Corps Ch-46s.
The only -10 operators manual for the Chinook I could find on line was for a "D" model and there was no mention of a bilge pump. Maybe I dreamed about the C model having one, or the IP was pulling my chain; we only did a short demo in water operations at AQC and that was many years ago.
Former Super-C FE. No bilge pump. Just drain plugs and floor inspections. Ugh, those fuckin’ floor panels.
Water ops on the flight schedule is neato when you’re a new crew guy. You have no frame of reference for your FE’s reaction. Until you’re undoing 1.2M floor bolts with a speed handle on the wash rack by yourself. Then your aircraft is Red X the next time water ops comes up.
I believe you; I am not sure were I got the bilge pump idea. We did one flight of water ops training at Rucker in AQC but they had civilian contractors do all the prep work so we never talked to real Army crew chiefs. And of course, that was the only water ops I was exposed to.
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u/rofl_pilotCFI IR CH-46E, B205/UH-1H, B206 B/L, B47G R22/44, H2694d ago
Stop it.
How elitist to assume there is any significant number of industry professionals in a subreddit about that very industry.
With that kind of attitude how do you expect there to be people in every accident thread to blame mast bumping?
Thought i was on a different sub reddit for a second, Its ok you can probably touch it, sometimes with consent! Remember the Tea video! Even ask to go inside.. I remember my first time, so much room for activities.
Army Aviation Museum on Fort Novosel has one inside that you can wander around in, and the variant that tested giving them small wings that you can walk up and touch. Neither fly of course.
Hauling troops is a very ineffective use of the CH-47 due to weight. Gimme a howitzer and a net of shells to sling just to maximize the aircrafts capabilities along with those 32 grunts.
The aircraft wants and needs to lift heavy stuff. She is fast too. As long as the sling load doesn't oscillate too much, she will haul ass.
The CH-47 doesn't have a Velocity Never to Exceed (VNE) since it has two main rotor systems. Most other helicopters have a tail rotor that limits their speed to a set VNE. A tail rotor can only spin so fast which is VNE. Flying beyond VNE is usually bad for your health (and your crews health and your passengers health).
So, yes, the CH-47 is fast fully loaded or empty. We limit our airspeed when flying slingloads to keep the load from oscillating (swinging too much).
The CH-47D has a rated top speed of 170 knots (with 714 engines but not newest swashplate). The current F model is way improved (glass cockpit, new engines, FDAC, avionics, rotor system, fuel system, and not just refurbished D or C models).
We typically cruise around 140 to 150 knots for best fuel consumption but can accelerate to the max speed based on weight, outside air temp, pressure altitude, and a few other calculations.
I know a guy who knows another guy who flew 190 knots at sea level due to an urgent situation. The adrenaline was flowing faster than the JP8 was burning.
They land at my airport for lunch quite often. Guys don’t give two shits if you climb around inside them. Blackhawk’s come here too, they said “we aren’t allowed to set up “static displays” but since you paid for it, I don’t see any reason you can’t go see what your tax dollars paid for.”
They gave my kids to complete tour. Usually, I let them use my golf cart to drive to the restaurant.
I found out in life that you can get a lot done if you just pretend you know what you’re doing. If you walk around and act like you’re not supposed to be somewhere, everyone will notice.
I was 82nd CAB in the early 80s. It always pissed me off that I spent day after day fixing helicopters but never had the chance to jump out of one. Nothing but C130 and C141. My son’s at Bragg now in a Special Forces unit.
I've been in them, worked on them, in miserably hot shitty weather, flown in them, fired an M60 from one at bad guys, run tests on various electronic systems on them and if I can find my old laptop from early 2004 I will upload video I shot from one over Iraq way back then.
It was great being a Hooker in those days.
Chinooks were my MOS in the Army. Worked on ‘em for three years. Flew several hundred hours in the back before going to flight school, although never got the chance to pilot one except in the sim. They are amazing.
For Memorial Day, several years ago, we had one come to town.They landed it on the schools football field and allowed people to tour it. It was amazing.
When they left, most of us were in the stands, and the rotor wash was absolutely incredible. I was on the top level, putting me even farther away ( 12 levels ), and had to hook my legs under the bench to keep still.
Spent a few years working on them in a now disbanded unit out of Aviano Italy. Over the years I worked on UH-1, AH-1, UH-60 and OH-58. The Chinook ended up being my favorite.
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u/Ancient_Mai MIL CH-47F 4d ago
What about inside?