Unusual Vietnam Hueys

Very timely picture of the M24A1 Cannon! I'm building that very weapon for my 1/35th scale ACH-47A Go-Go bird and I did not have a clear picture of the cannon itself. Got all the bases covered now!

Chief Snake 

A few years ago I found the hand painted art work panel from "Big Daddy" for sale on ebay. I won the auction for $100. I had it verified from veterans from the 116th that it was indeed the original door panel sign from the aircraft. It currently hangs on the wall of my work room.

Chief Snake 

Ray,

Great pics. thats one mad Huey! After seeing the way the guns on a skyraider bounce back and forward while firing Im not surprised she didnt last long. Would love to have seen her in action though. Another fine example of twin door mounted 60's  .

Andy

I thought I would post this pick I found on the 116th website of Bigdaddy.  As I said on page 3 This ship belonged to the 116th.  The gun is a 20mm wing gun from an A-1 Skyraider (or F-100 if the website is correct).  It was originally mounted on a pintle, but that was a little awkward so they used a mounting bracket under the ship.  They had to put in a blast shield (which you can see in this pic), though, because firing the gun blew out th chin bubble!  The web site said this ship didn't last long because the recoil from the gun cracked the hardpoints!

    Ray

PS: Here's the Hornet home page in case anyone is interested (Thanks for the link, Andy):

http://www.116ahc.org/ 

Here's the original photo from page 3 as well from the other side:

[img]http://" border="0" />

Mel,

  Thanks for the info on the 101st!  I wasn't actually sure it was taken in Vietnam.  It came from the archives of the Army Aviation Museum at Ft. Rucker and had no info attached.  I was very fortunate to be able to talk to lots of helo crew members from the 145 CAB this last week.  They were very helpful and answered many questions I'm sure they don't hear every day.  Things like "Where exactly did you clip your monkey belt?" and "Did you guys use ammo chutes or not on your M23 mounted 60s?"  Thanks again to all the veterans who help us get this stuff right!

     Ray

PS: I would be very interested to see any other pics of armed Dustoff birds. 

Anybody notice anything unusual about this "Dustoff?"

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Here's a little sample of what I found in the archives.  I'm sure many of you have heard of the M24A1 20mm cannon that was mounted on the ACH-47's.  You may have even seeen a pic of one mounted on a Huey like the first pic below.  However, I doubt whether many of you have ever seen,much less concieved of, dual 20mm cannons on a UH-1B!  But pictures don't lie.  Check'em out.

[img]http://[img]http://This was a test bird at Rucker.  I'm not sure of the date.  Note that the ammo chutes are laid out on boards on top of the skids and there doesn't appear to be any ammo in them.  Check out the bracing as well.  Perhaps this pic was staged for a photo op, but it still looks cool to me!

    Ray
 

Jon,

  I hope you get to come by.  Your reputation precedes you at the Museum.  I got to see your Osprey Apache book, by the way.  Great stuff!!  I can't wait for the Squadron pubs.

      Ray

Glad to hear ya had a good time today Ray! 

Gonna see if I can swing by tomorrow!

Jon
 

Grandad,

  You ain't kidding.  I have about 70 Huey kits as of now and I ain't closed my E-bay account yet!  By the way, I spent the day climbing on a B model here at Rucker and I found some VERY unusual huey pics in the archive.  Stay tuned for some very cool stuff.  I alo want to take a moment to thank museum Director Steve Maxham and his staff for all their help.  I can't wait to get back in the collection tomorrow!  

     Ray

Another cool pic!  My guess is, its probably a SideArm being fired at a ZSU-234 "tank".  I need to get me some Huey kits!

 Jon
 

Not that I think it's the same missile but the Huey was certainly a wide test platform for such things.

USMC HH-1K Huey BuNo 157194, firing a Sidewider missile at a tank target, 12 October 1971. Official U.S. Navy photo.

http://www.chinalakealumni.org/1971.htm

I thought you guys might be interested in a color photo of one of the 553's:

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Caption reads: "Bell YH40 Model 553 serial number 4" and is from the Army Aviation Museum Archives.  This bird doen't look like Grandad's, though.  Were each of the prototypes outfitted differently?

Ray 

One of 6 YH-40's(model 533) configured for a high-speed test for a top speed of 316mph on April 15, 1969

In the end, I think we'll probably see that it's some version of a TOW missile. The red color is a bit of a stumper, usually inert ordnance is blue. The red color is probably for visual recognition for a camera following at increasing distance. There's always many reasons why the minor fin variations exist, especially if they were testing for performance improvement or deficiency and the variations were just cycles of trial. It simply doesn't fit any other configuration of missile except for the more modern anti-armor weapons.

Chief Snake 

Jon,

  I ain't sayin' it's a hellfire, but it don't look like a TOW to me.  You make good points, though.  We'll have to wait and see what Redstone says.  I have a brother-in-law there and I may have to get him to track down the history for me.  One way or another, I will find out what this is if there is still a record of the test fire.  What about the possibility of three sets of fins?  What about the fact that the warhead on the mystery missile isn't tapered like the 71A?  Also, if they are testing the launcher, would they use the experimental orange on the missile or would they just use a training missile?  Diameter difference: 152 mm (TOW) vs 178 (Hellfire), not really that much I guess.  One thing is for sure, the missile is within the size parameters of both the TOW and Hellfire.  However, I think we can safely assume it isn't an anti-ship weapon at least!  Boy was I wrong on that one!  

    Ray

Ray,

If you rotate the either TOW 45 degrees, the fins will match up perfectly.  Compare the missiles in each picture to the window in the troop compartment door.  They match up perfectly too.  

If you look at the fins, in each pic, one set appears to be an x and one set appears to be a +, which coincides with the offsetting of the fins on the TOW.  Hellfire has never had that.  Hellfire fins have always been in line.  For size comparison, the Hellfire is a foot longer than the TOW and about the same in diameter.  It could very well be an AGM-71A-1 Extended Range TOW undergoing tests. 

Then again... there's no TOW sight on the Huey's chin bubble....

Jon  

I did a little Photoshoping of the two pics.  I rotated the TOW launch to more closely resemble the  mystery missile  firing.  Then I scaled the UH-1B to the same size as the  Charlie model .  Then I  cut out the two missiles and scaled them together for a better comparison.  I know the angles are different, but they don't look the same to me and the mystery missile looks about a foot longer and greater diameter.  By the way, I think there may be 3 sets of fins on the mystery missile if you look closely at the blown up versions that doesn't look like a black line anymore.  What is everyone else's opinion?

   Ray

PS: Jon, I think the UH-1B is using the light weight TOW launcher you mentioned above, is it not? 

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Jon,

  What about the size problem.  The TOW is 46 in. long.  You mentioned earlier that you thought this rocket was larger than a hellfire which is 64 inches long.  I don't see how the mystery missile could really be as small as a TOW.

     Ray

Edit:  Here's a B model firing a known TOW:

[img]http://

Here's the mystery missile:

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They don't even look close to me.  Check out this link for a PDF of the History of theTOW.  I haven't had time to read it all yet, it's 231 pages long!

http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA434477&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf 

I think Chris has got it.  The fins have not finished extending yet.  Judging from the size of the missile, the date it was taken and the platform its launching from, it makes sense.  On the TOW, the forward fins flick out forward and the rear fins flick out to the rear.  Plus, they are offset slightly, which accounts for the apparent difference in size. 

If you look at the position that the fins would be in when fully extended, it makes total sense.  They were probably testing the lightweight TOW launchers that eventually ended up on the Cobra.  That'd account for the lack of Huey TOW launcher visible in the pic.

I'd call this one case closed!

Jon

Chief Snake,

  Front fin looks totally different from a TOW.  Course it also looks differentf rom just about every other missile I can find.  Here's a pic of the TOW family of missiles so others can make their own judgement:

And the pic in question, just so everone doesn't have to go back up:

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It sure looks like a TOW missile to me. Just being fired without guidance on a test range. Remember the TOW entered combat service being fired from the NUH-1B. The firing aircraft is a UH-1C evidenced by the rotor head and pitot location. Some kind of post Vietnam test of missiles destined for AH-1 use?

Chief Snake 

Trigger,

  Good call.  A Harpoon would stretch from the back of the cabin door to the front of the nose on a Charlie model Huey!  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

    Ray

That's not a Harpoon. Shape is different. Harpoon is too big (12' 7" long) and too heavy (1,145 pounds). Would through the balance off when fired. Air launched AGM-84s are only cleared for F/A-18, P-3C, S-3B, B-52 and RAAF F-111s.