Katrina and the helicopter

Hey Jon, she tried to burn herself up twice in the desert. Aft cabin bulkhead went from T6 to base metal properties. Just showed up at home a month ago.

Mac

Yipe! On the other hand, maybe not! Still, good luck!

Nikon1,
Orange and white UH-1Ns are most likely Navy birds out of Fallon. USAF UH-1Ns aren't orange and white.

Several USAF HH-60Gs have been working the area as well. My squadron is on stand-by but since were up here in Alaska, I doubt we'll get the call. We did send a couple Herks down there to help out from the 144th.

Sal
I'm putting my butt on the line here - but I saw the same bird as Nikon did. The shade of orange looks the same as Navy UH-1Ns, but the pattern was totally different. When it first approached the house it was doing a pickup from, it came head-on, towards the camera so I thought it was a Navy UH-1N - until he turned and his left side faced the camera.

Overall the helicopter was white. It had a yellow saftey band on the tail just aft of the horizontals and the rest of tail after that was orange. The nose had a black anti-glare panel but was otherwise top-to-bottom orange all the way back to the end of the pilot's doors (which had been removed). There was also a step that ran from the front skid strut to the aft on at least one side (presumably both)

I was unable to read the tail number, but the national insignia was smaller than those used on Navy birds and it did say "U.S. Air Force" on the tail boom. I did a double take because I thought all AF UH-1Ns were either still in Euro1 or VIP schemes.

Edit - I downloaded vector art from af.mil this morning and made this rendering based off of what I saw. It is my manipulation of an Air Force graphic, not official artwork

Ive seen AF UH-1's on the ramp at Eglin AFB done in the scheme shown by trigger a few years ago... stands to reason if thier being used at testing centers they'd still where the same colors?

I'll back up Grant on this one as well. I too saw the USAF high-vis SAR bird on CNN a couple days ago. I didn't think USAF had any left in high-vis pattern either.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Awood23 who's flying super pumas in New Orleans?

I second that: who is? ERA Aviation?

dammit.... just found out I'm not going....

Good luck all of you guys who are down there, you're doin a great job!

Yesterday I also saw the Customs/ Border Patrol Blackhawks helping out. The black ones with a gold stripe. I have a kit for that exact paint scheme on the shelf. They were doing search and rescue and delivering supplies to those who dont want to leave.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Awood23 Ive seen AF UH-1's on the ramp at Eglin AFB done in the scheme shown by trigger a few years ago... stands to reason if thier being used at testing centers they'd still where the same colors?

I saw the AF UH-1 too, and I do think that's where it was from... That's the 40th FLTS that has UH-1Ns and does range support at Eglin.

The AF also has it's own boats at Eglin. :-)

The AF also has range support UH-1Ns at Vandenberg, but they are camo.

Dave
-DPD Productions - Custom Scanner, MURS, & Ham Antennas-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/

Here is a photo montage of the USAF UH-1N in New Orleans, LA. It seems to have the Arctic high-vis paint scheme. Can anyone ID where it is from?

QUOTE: Originally posted by HeavyArty Here is a photo montage of the USAF UH-1N in New Orleans, LA. It seems to have the Arctic high-vis paint scheme. Can anyone ID where it is from?

That's it! Okay, It's more red than orange (gotta check my settings on the TV!) and the red goes back farther than my drawing, but that's the bird I saw!

Looking at those pix I realize, as good as my observations were, there still is room for improvement.

Okay - new question. I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee and that location is relevant to my question. This evening I drove thru our airport here and saw what I'm pretty sure was an SH-3 Sea King. It's possible that it was an HH-52, but I'm 99% sure that it had two engines and that flat dam-like structure in front of the intakes. It was hard to judge the size from the distance, lighting and lack of anything near to to compare. It did have a five-bladed tail rotor and it was a boat-hull model. As I look at this pic, I'm inclined to say it was an SH-3


It was a darker gray that the ghost-gray scheme the US Navy uses, but not as dark as say, Gunship Gray. Also, it had a black radome mounted atop the fuselage aft of the engines. I did not have my camera with me, If I have time in the morning, I may go out ther before work and try for some shots - but if other aircraft are parked in front of it like they were tonight, then it'll be pointless.

So who's flying SH-3s these days and what would they be doing here? It wasn't Royal Navy was it? (Whoever it belongs to, I suspect it was here on an overnight stopover on it's way to the Gulf Coast)

As I drove around the tarmac, at one point I could see the helicopter head-on and is did not have that big radome that RN SeaKings have that rotate down 90 degrees, but it did have the same spine radome as in this picture (and the gray looks similar)


At no time was I able to see any markings

Could be Canadian, think they still fly them although it could be British out of Canada, they do train in Canada, and I think our Navy still has a few around also

I'll throw money it was canadian. Grant I want you to look at some mug shots and see if we can Id the suspect

http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/equip/equip1_e.asp

Hey hey! Good evening Nashville! Thank you for the mug shots!

Looking at that site, I think it was a Canadian CH-124/SH-3 SeaKing:

Same perspective, same radome and that looks like the color I saw and in the setting sun at that distance (est 100 yards), would help explain why I couldn't see any markings.

Our airshow's not for another eight weeks (but there was one F/A-18C or D here today as well as Rick Svetkoff's CF-104D) so I doubt they were here for anything related to that ...so could this mean CAF will be helping with the SAR efforts on the Gulf Coast?

I humbly stand corrected. I guess the test center folks still have there's in the arctic scheme.

Man I gotta start watching the news.

BTW, we still haven't sent any rescue birds from Alaska with the exception of a C-130H3 slick from the 144th AS (Alaska ANG). We do have 5 PJ's from the 212th RQS (Alaska ANG) down in New Orleans and have 5 more on the way.
We've been getting SITREPs and man is it a jungle down there. Several ARNG units have sent LAVs and these crews are carrying SWAT teams and snipers to escort EMS workers while they help out the injured. Apparently the gangs have been shooting at everything down there. The last SITREP I read on the downed civilian helicopter didn't say who it belonged to, but it did say that they were unable to locate the aircrew. I'll check tomorrow to see if that's been updated. The ARNG LtCol in charge of the LAVs has even requested snipers onboard OH-58s.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Awood23 who's flying super pumas in New Orleans?

Just saw a picture on the HeliKitNews- forum: the crashed AS332 Super Puma appears to have been an AS330J "regular" Puma: N330CC operated by Sky Cats Puma Corp....

QUOTE: Originally posted by yardbird78 Check out this TIME news story for an article on the Marine CH-53E from MCAS New River, NC. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1101340,00.html Darwin, O.F.

Thanks Drawin,

Those are my buddies, and that's one of my birds. I'm proud of to be part of a squadron that can get it done all over the world at one time. Thanks for the link.

Semper Fi,
Chris

QUOTE: Originally posted by salbando ...The last SITREP I read on the downed civilian helicopter didn't say who it belonged to, but it did say that they were unable to locate the aircrew.

Are you referring to the Puma, or did another bird go down that I haven't heard about?

Another victim of Katrine...


From CNN:
"A civilian helicopter crashed on to a rooftop north of downtown New Orleans Wednesday."

Another civilian rescue helo has gone down. Looks like a civilian Bell 206 Jet Ranger. No word on the crew. Hope they are alright. May God protect all the brave rescue crews working the area.

It didn't list the aircraft type. I'll try to get more info from the JOC tomorrow. Just got off alert...did an ELT search today and it turned out to be a Beaver (DHC-2) on floats that got stuck in an alpine lake. Well....we got him unstuck.

Since the SITREP was fairly recent I'm thinking it was the Jet Danger.

I heard that one of the LA National Guard Huey's got a little "heavy" on the the skids and put them through the roof of a building. Ended up shuting it down and there may be damage to the the tail boom as well as belly. Haven't heard any more yet. My brother was one of thecrazy Cajuns who drug down every small boat they could get in the Lafayette area and went down to N.O. the Wed after the storm to assist in rescues and due to lack of places to safely lauch boats only a small percentage of the over 300 boats lauched then some were "highjacked" at gun point and left to sit on the roof's fo their victims. Others shot at. My bother ended up having thier motor quit and had to use the electric trolling motor to get back. They did rescue two lost souls in a canoe that where trying to rescue themselves. They were worn out "chasing" helicopters trying to find their way out. They even gave them a ride out of "hell" to Lafayette.

Oh, ERA Aviation is one of the oldest civialian helcopter companies in the USA that was operating out of Alaska and spread South to other States. Check out Google, ERA Helicopters.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Melgyver Oh, ERA Aviation is one of the oldest civialian helcopter companies in the USA that was operating out of Alaska and spread South to other States. Check out Google, ERA Helicopters.

Don't know if you are referring to my earlier reply/ question ("Who is flying Super Puma's in New Orleans? ERA Aviation?")?
I know about ERA, and to my knowledge it's the only American company that flies AS332L's. And because in the beginning of this post someone mentioned the crash of an AS332 (which later actually turned out to be an SA330J) and Era has some offshore helicopter activities at the Gulf of Mexico (Mobile, Alabama) I was curious if it was one of their 'copters that had crashed.
If your reply had nothing to do with mine: apologies and consider this reply as not-written!

Thank you, Gertjan

QUOTE: Originally posted by GeejeeZ [Don't know if you are referring to my earlier reply/ question ("Who is flying Super Puma's in New Orleans? ERA Aviation?")? I know about ERA, and to my knowledge it's the only American company that flies AS332L's. And because in the beginning of this post someone mentioned the crash of an AS332 (which later actually turned out to be an SA330J) and Era has some offshore helicopter activities at the Gulf of Mexico (Mobile, Alabama) I was curious if it was one of their 'copters that had crashed. If your reply had nothing to do with mine: apologies and consider this reply as not-written! Thank you, Gertjan

Think he is referring to the downed Bell 206, Jet Ranger. Based on the paint scheme, it looks like an ERA bird.

Is this the beast of which you speak?

I'll try to find a real photo of one.

And here it is:

TLAR, Eagle334!

ET tail code, Shark's teeth tail band... yup, that's an Eglin bird! 46th Test Wing, AFMC

anybody see the L.A county Sherrif's helo on CNN last night. Nice color scheme! wouldn't mind trying that as a model.

QUOTE: Originally posted by 1st_combat_comm anybody see the L.A county Sherrif's helo on CNN last night. Nice color scheme! wouldn't mind trying that as a model.

Looks like your prayers have been heard Whirlybird just pre-announced a conversion set and decals for the LAPD SeaKing (source: HeliKitNews).