Now Comes Military Hueys?

Chip Sylverne

Chip Sylverne

Final Approach
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
So did my run up on the ramp and was just about to enter the taxiway to the active runway about 11:30 am when a flight of 2 Recon Hueys announce a straight in to DMW. One lands on the taxiway , the other in the grass between the taxiway and the runway, effectively blocking access to the departure end ( and landing unless you wanted to flare through rotor wash) and sit, rotors turning, for a good 5-7 minutes. I turned on my taxi lights to let them know I was waiting, but got no response. I was about to key the mic when they announced they were departing, but it was still a good few minutes before they actually spooled up. All in all they effectively closed the airport for 10 mi Tues, with no official announcement.

It was no big deal to me as I was only going to poke holes in the air, but if I had had a clearance void time, I'd have been ****ed. Never seen that before. We have a lot of military choppers come through, but they always land on the ramp without blocking anything.

Biden was at the beach in DE, with the associated TFR's but the outside ring is a good distance east. Are they going to start keeping us on the ground now, or was this just bad manners, a fluke or what ya think? Anyone here got a clue?
 
Intersection departure? I know you only have 5000 feet to work with there... :D
 
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Potential for back taxi? Flat pitch rotor is really not a problem…but bad manners for sure…
 
I’ve asked them, and at idle on the ground, the wash isn’t going to do anything unless you are passing single digit feet behind them. But I understand the hesitation.
 
State Police at KPOU. They don't actually patrol anywhere. They just take off, fly in a circle (not the pattern) and land. Never gone more than 10 minutes.
A few weeks ago they had traffic tied up for 20 minutes while they argued about what they were going to do. They then launched from the pad in front of their hanger straight down taxi way "D" where we were all lined up, waiting for them to move.
Bad words were said over the radio.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
We have a lot of military choppers come through, but they always land on the ramp without blocking anything.
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Curious. Were these the familiar old style hueys? Last I heard the military no longer operated UH-1Hs.
 
Bell206 said:
Curious. Were these the familiar old style hueys? Last I heard the military no longer operated UH-1Hs.
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Correct— USAF still fly N models and the Marines fly Y’s. Most likely they were LEO or some other alphabet organization, but it possible it was an N out of Andrews or a Y out of an East Coast squadron. Based on location, an N makes more sense than a Y.
 
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tsts4 said:
Most likely they were LEO or some other alphabet organization
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I suspect this as well. In my experience, military guys tend to be more neighborly where public ops guys think they own the place. Plus the Y model doesnt look a lot like your typical huey. Didnt realize the N was still flown, thought the Y replaced them all.
 
Bell206 said:
I suspect this as well. In my experience, military guys tend to be more neighborly where public ops guys think they own the place. Plus the Y model doesnt look a lot like your typical huey. Didnt realize the N was still flown, thought the Y replaced them all.
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The USAF never flew Y’s. The N’s are used primarily for ICBM missile field support and DV airlift support in the NCR. They are going to be replaced with Boeing MH-139s. Back when I was a Minute Man III launch officer, I rode out to my launch control facility to pull alert in the back of an N a couple of times, but mainly they flew convoy support and missile field security missions.
 
Bell206 said:
Curious. Were these the familiar old style hueys? Last I heard the military no longer operated UH-1Hs.
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I don't know the difference., but they didn't look like anything out of Apocalypse Now. They announced themselves as "Recon Hueys" and were in military livery without any civilian police markings like the MD Police helicopters.

They weren't black. But they were big, had what looked like a big barrel of something lethal sticking out the top. Didn't look like no pitot tube.

I wasn't going to ask. Or challenge their authority to close the airport in my little Comanche.
 
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That sounds like the refueling probe on an MH/HH-60 (Army and USAF special operations Blackhawk variants) or possibly a Marine CH-53 but hard to mistake a 53 for a Huey.

This an HH-60 Pave Hawk in air refueling.

161107-F-PJ289-9241.JPG


This is a CH-53:
DF3179C4-987A-4C96-BD58-C1646F05F23E.jpeg
 
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Chip Sylverne said:
I don't know the difference.
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FYI: unless they looked liked one of the models linked below, they were local public or private recon wannabes. You should of asked them and pumped them up a bit.
UH-1N
UH-1Y

tsts4 said:
They are going to be replaced with Boeing MH-139s.
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They'll be wishing for their N models back before the end of the week.;)
 
Another clue is what color were they?

Years ago we had a Huey land abruptly at 0W3. He had a chip light come on and landed NOW. Crew chief checked a few things out and they left.
 
Looked like the pave hawk pic above, only there was a tube sticking up from the center top of the cockpit, pointed forward at about 45 degrees that looked like it had some level of lethality associated. No refueling probe. Color the same.

Didn't stare at them, I didn't want to intimidate, mighty Comanche and all.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Looked like the pave hawk pic above, only there was a tube sticking up from the center top of the cockpit, pointed forward at about 45 degrees that looked like it had some level of lethality associated. No refueling probe. Color the same.

Didn't stare at them, I didn't want to intimidate, mighty Comanche and all.
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View attachment 111654

Something like what’s in this pic? Those are cable cutters.

A0DF2F40-DA7A-4169-93EB-240872F62E09.jpeg

here’s a Yankee showing its cutter:

4FD8D1E9-DBCF-4F4E-AEB0-99D7184D4D8C.jpeg
 
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Bell206 said:
It was on wheels and not skids, correct? Do you remember the exact date and time you same them?
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KDMW 10/22 11:35 -45 local time. Couldn't swear wheels or skids. Big, green, rotors and called themselves Recon Hueys. Flight of two. What I don't know from helicopters could fill volumes. Did not look civilian, did not act civilian. Had the thing out the top like the you tube above, but the windshield config was different, and seemed a lot bigger.

But you know, they all seem kind of big when th he act like that. They were courteous, just in the way, like a bouncer at a nice club.

Thinking about it now, yeah, wheels. Or skids. I dunno.

I'm not under oath, am I?
 
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Chip Sylverne said:
Did not look civilian, did not act civilian.
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That's quite possible. There are a lot of restricted ex-military airframes flying in public and private ops. Its how they acted that points to one of these ops and not the military in my experience.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
but the windshield config was different,
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Did you notice if the pilot's door windows looked "bubbled" out as in bubble windows? Does the airport have a tower? Maybe give them a call and see if they remember and maybe who it was?

Do you swear to tell the true, nothing but........
 
Bell206 said:
Did you notice if the pilot's door windows looked "bubbled" out as in bubble windows? Does the airport have a tower? Maybe give them a call and see if they remember and maybe who it was?

Do you swear to tell the true, nothing but........
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I don't recall, they were good 1/4 -1/2 mile down the taxiway, and I was at a bit of an angle to them not pointed straight at them. I believe they had a 3 piece windscreen though, because I remember thinking those must be some new design, they don't look like Vietnam era Hueys...and us being right between p40 and the ILM tfrs...though P40 wasn't hot.

No tower. Nobody got wounded, so I guess it's all good.
 
With a 3-piece windscreen I’m back to thinking Blackhawk.
 
tsts4 said:
With a 3-piece windscreen I’m back to thinking Blackhawk.
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YES, that's it UH-60 Blackhawk. Just googled it. Those are the ones.
Do those come in civvie models?
 
Lindberg said:
How did they close the airport?
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Blocked the taxiway to the active, and, I don't know about you but I'm not landing with a big military chopper with rotors spinning just feet from the edge of the runway. If you want to, have at it.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
YES, that's it UH-60 Blackhawk. Just googled it. Those are the ones.
Do those come in civvie models?
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Kinda. One example, I was just watching a YouTube video today about a guy with apparently a bunch of money who bought a surplus A model and is pursuing a civilian type rating.
 
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Chip Sylverne said:
Blocked the taxiway to the active, and, I don't know about you but I'm not landing with a big military chopper with rotors spinning just feet from the edge of the runway. If you want to, have at it.
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It likely wouldn't have bothered me. I've never been there, but looks like you've got a 5000' runway with multiple intersections. If I knew they'd be there a while, I might have used one. I can certainly understand your frustrations if you believed they're departure was imminent, but they just sat. Regardless, I've never heard of another aircraft using the airport facilities, even discourteously, as "closing" the airport.
 
There are several helicopters that regularly use the parallel taxiway at our airport for touch and goes, practice autos, etc. We just talk, coordinate, and it's no issue. If these guys barged in not talking or responding to anyone, that's just rude. But I wouldn't feel endangered by them sitting on the ground.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Do those come in civvie models?
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Yes, but restricted. S-70M. You can buy new from OEM or used UH-60 conversions from several companies. Being used to fight forest fires mostly. 2nd pic is conversion 60.
Ffji3qsVsAEARiT


field-helicopter.5b79829.jpg
 
Lindberg said:
There are several helicopters that regularly use the parallel taxiway at our airport for touch and goes, practice autos, etc. We just talk, coordinate, and it's no issue. If these guys barged in not talking or responding to anyone, that's just rude. But I wouldn't feel endangered by them sitting on the ground.
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They didn't barge, they announced 5 miles out, direction of flight and altitude etc, entering the pattern and intentions like real gentlemen. They just blocked the taxiway and sat right next to the runway, like that's what they were ordered to do. I have no complaints about the how, just the why.

We have multiple turn offs, but just one rwy. 16 was the active, and they positioned themselves some south of the ramp between the last two turn offs. We get a lot of training traffic, so back-taxiiing on the active is kinda iffy proposition. I could be making more of this than it is, but flying in the shadow of the SFRA, P40, and on then off ILM TFR's you get a little gunshy when the military-looking stuff shows up and looks like they want to block traffic from taking the runway.

I was at MIV when a Chinook decided to spin up when I was taxiing. I have a healthy respect for military helicopters with turning rotors. We had a Sky Crane show up one day, that thing shook the hangar.

Know what? I'm still not going to barge on past if it happens again.
 
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"Helicopter on the grass at Carroll County, if y'all are going to be there for a minute, do you mind if I take off?"
 
Chip Sylverne said:
... Are they going to start keeping us on the ground now, or was this just bad manners, a fluke or what ya think? Anyone here got a clue?
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My first career was as a crew chief on Navy CH-46s and UH-1Ns. Almost all of the pilots I flew with had zero GA experience.

We used to use a small municipal airport for refueling, one of us had to drive the tanker from the base up to the muni, about 60 miles away. The pilots were in the habit of blowing into the airport and maybe making an inbound call a few miles out, an then announcing their intentions to approach from whatever direction (runway headings were irrelevant) and land at an open area at one end of the field. They're thoughts on the subject was, we'll keep our eyes peeled for other aircraft, and its all good.

A couple of times, I ferried additional crews up to that muni in a Cessna, so we could hot-swap crews to get more training done. Some of the Navy helo pilots were curious about pattern entry procedures and what the GA population were doing. I wound up giving a little presentation. Didn't really change how we did things. But, at least they were more aware.
 
Silvaire said:
I would have gotten on the radio and politely asked them how long they were planning on blocking the runway? Maybe they didn't know you were back there waiting.
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They could see me,waiting to enter the taxiway. We were looking at each other. I dunno. Strange. Should have keyed up the mic.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
They could see me,waiting to enter the taxiway. We were looking at each other. I dunno. Strange. Should have keyed up the mic.
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Yeah, you should have. I have idiots at my airport that do runups for 20 minutes. If you never spoke I’d assume you were one of them.
 
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