Well it's time to rejuvenate this thread. I have chosen some birds from the 4/77th ARA (actually, B Battery, 2-20 ARA, 1st Cav Division, thanks Jon) for this post. These pics were all taken by a CWO Parker and donated to the Army Aviation Museum. Let's start with a couple of UH-1B's sporting the Maxwell system:
[img]http://
Note that this bird has the old style un-armored seats, but improvised armor has been added to the seat and the door.
[img]http://
This bird is in the midst of having the UNITED STATES ARMY repainted. The pegs sticking off of the tailboom indicate that this ship carried a HF "high line" antenna. Check out the red paint on the front of the skids.
[img]http://
A very early version of a Firefly ship. Note those red skids again.
[img]http://[img]http://[
You might look at the two pics above and say "so what, its an M16 subsystem", but wait. Check out the type of Huey they are on. This bird has nose mounted antennas and the early VN air intakes without the partical separators so it's a B model, right? Not so fast. Check out the roof mounted pitot, the 540 rotor system, the assymetrical horizontal stabs, the wide chord tail rotor, the armament mount supports and the left handed fuel filler cap. This is one of the earliest VN UH-1C pics I have ever seen. Also, I can't even remember seeing a Charlie model armed with the M16 system. Definitely unusual.
Finally, let's end this one with a couple of pics of B Battery, 2-20 ARA, Griffon nose art:
[img]http://[img]http://
Edit: I found this caption for the photo above at the VHPA museum site:
"WO1 Chip Parker with one of the ARA acft flown in the Ia Drang Nov 65"
I thought you might like to know that, Andy.
Both of these birds are Bravos sporting M3 24shot 2.75 inch rocket packs. another words, they are both HOGS. Enjoy!
Ray