Its not pink, its salmon!

As noted earlier, the one anomaly seems to be the Cobra.

Ed< you owe me a screen cleaning!!!  The Sperm comment was too much for my 54year old body and 15 year old brain. no more coffee at the computer for me.

A side note, I recently saw an article that spoke of the Army's naming system for helicopters. They have a Native Inqury board they run the names by and The Board has final say if the name can be used.

Ah...old Fire-0bucket standby...long weekends waiting to get called in. Its nice to see the guys and gals actually get to help out with the wild fires.  Used to be we only fought fires on Camp Pendelton proper.  Now they get to help out where needed.

The old "Big Iron" CH-53E can haul some water with the new "bambi-bucket" we carry about 900 gallons at a dip.

I'd also call them, with all due respect to those who flew them, quite deadly to their crews.

I would have to look it up again, but memory says that out of about 1,500 supplied to the Army in Vietnam, about 1,000 were destroyed. 

We've been collecting our households back together last week. Evacuation orders have been lifted and the small towns in those areas are opening up again.

Hi EdGrune:

          Well dontchya know. We called them Sparrows or Little Birds. That other name I don't believe came up. They kinda do look that way don't they?

Go all the way back to Korea.  
The H-13s of MASH fame were named Sioux

i have heard that the O-6s got the nickname Sperm from their shape

GMorrison

 

Which is an interesting thing I only became aware of somewhat recently.

 

To me, Army helos were Hueys and Loaches. And the CH-47 Chinook, well it kinda does look like..

 

And both the Loach and Huey are names derived from their original role or nomenclature.

The OH-6 Cayuse was designed for the LOH role, Light Observation Helicopter. Someone somewhere in the US Army will find a way to pronounce an Army acronym... LOH became Loach.

The Huey. Before the merging of service designations for the same airframe (the F4H/F-110 Phantom is a fine example), the UH-1 Iroquois was the HU1 Iroquois. Not much of a leap and easier to say Huey than Iroquois. 

Only the earliest Army choppers did not have a tribal name. And the AH-1 Cobra was theoretically part of the UH-1 program, with something like 70% parts commonality at the beginning.

stikpusher

 

 

goldhammer

Naw....Bill's playing on the humor of Chinook being a species of salmon, listed as endangered on most of the west coast.

Good eats too, the favorite of orcas and sealions .

 

 

 

 

Although the CH-47 Chinook, like all US Army helicopters, except the AH-1 Cobra, is named after a Native American tribe, not a fish.

 

To me, Army helos were Hueys and Loaches. And the CH-47 Chinook, well it kinda does look like..

keavdog

Interesting - I may need to add this to my fire support builds.   Very cool

 

 

Maybe a C-130 too....

Interesting - I may need to add this to my fire support builds.   Very cool

goldhammer

Naw....Bill's playing on the humor of Chinook being a species of salmon, listed as endangered on most of the west coast.

Good eats too, the favorite of orcas and sealions .

 

Although the CH-47 Chinook, like all US Army helicopters, except the AH-1 Cobra, is named after a Native American tribe, not a fish.

Ah, guess I need to brush up on my salmon varieties.

Naw....Bill's playing on the humor of Chinook being a species of salmon, listed as endangered on most of the west coast.

Good eats too, the favorite of orcas and sealions .

GMorrison

Isn't that a Chinook?

If you mean the helo in your original post w/832 on the tailboom, no.  That is a US Army UH-60L Black Hawk.

The CH-47 Chinook is much larger and has two main rotors.

This drawing shows their relative size pretty well.

Tanker-Builder

Hmmm;

 Now that's a new one on me. A SalmonHawk? LOL. 

Sis is awesome. She's been a SAR dog handler for about a decade. Her dogs are cadaver recovery animals. Usually they search for lost hunters, and sadly suicides. Doggies have little boots and just live for the job.

She's had a lot of helo rides to crazy places. No small arms fire, but lots of the other kind.

Bill

Hmmm;

 Now that's a new one on me. A SalmonHawk? LOL. Bright markings are indeed needed for Aerial Firefighters!

It’s an annual thing in California. Every fire season (usually sept/oct), if we had a jump scheduled using Cal Guard air assets, it was routine to have the jump cancelled due to a fire and the aircraft assigned being re tasked for firefighting duties. This sort of markings would be worn for quite some time afterwards. The Air Force Reserve C-141s were more reliable and would only be cancelled for non local real world event retaskings.

That makes perfect sense! Like so many things, it's so obvious once somebody explains it.

Thanks Gino and Ed!

EdGrune

i have seen pix of gray Navy Seahawks out of San Diego marked with dayglo green markings  flying water buckets to fight the fires

Yes, all branches of the US Military help out in Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA), when military assets and personnel can be used to assist in missions normally carried out by civil authorities, such as fire fighting.

USN MH-60S

USMC UH-1Y

USAF HH-60G

Greg

What's the deal with the markings in the first place? Is it like a medivac thing, so nobody shoots at them? Who would, little skittish forest animals???

Curious minds want to know....

The helo is working the fires in California   The markings are high-viz to help the other aircraft in the area, including the airborne Air Boss, see and avoid a collision    Note the large number - that is the call sign

i have seen pix of gray Navy Seahawks out of San Diego marked with dayglo green markings  flying water buckets to fight the fires

 Those markings look to be well done   Others I've seen look like the AC was tagged by a graffiti artist

Greg

What's the deal with the markings in the first place? Is it like a medivac thing, so nobody shoots at them? 

No, it is a visibility issue.  The dark aircraft tends to be less visible against the green forest background, dark smoke, and haze of fires.  The bright colors make them more visible so they can be seen by other aircraft and by the ground crews to guide them where needed.  The exact reason the Army paints them dark green (to blend into wooded backgrounds) hampers their use as a firefighter.

An example of why they have the bright colors.  At a distance, this one would be almost invisible w/out them.

US Army MH-60M

GMorrison

For a 58 year old woman, she's got some guts.

I''ll say she does.

GMorrison

"WTF, a pinkhawk?" "Ma'am, that's not pink, it's salmon!"

That reads like a script.

So many one-liners come to mind re the pink color, but I can't think of one that wouldn't get me tossed out of here.

What's the deal with the markings in the first place? Is it like a medivac thing, so nobody shoots at them? Who would, little skittish forest animals???

Curious minds want to know....

Otherwise known as "Dusty Rose" back in the late 80s

Looks pink to me... much like one side of VS-17 marker panels... I think that crew chief fudged his color blind test...