Warbird Information Exchange

Great stuff HR ! This is what makes WIX so valuable and interesting to rec recreational historians like myself.

HR, we've gone from a tired L11 to a really strong L13 on the E model. We can lift 8 people and 1600 lbs of gas on a 100 degree day and don't break 40 lbs of torque ! Of course we're running the 540 system and those big blades really bite the air with all that power !

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

I had a real hard time digging for those memories, and I’ve always considered my memory to be quite good. It’s just not something you think about on a daily basis. Anyway, it’s good to exercise that part of the brain; otherwise it might all slip away for good!



I’m no expert on the Huey line, but I believe the E is about the same as the Army’s Charlie and Mike models - dedicated fire support aircraft with the small cabin. No idea of the weights involved between the H and E. I was told that when they went from the D model to the H - L-11 to the L-13 - that because the transmission was limited to 1100 SHP, the L-13 was flat rated to 1100. That might even be true...

We started out that day with six cases of soda, but the PIC didn’t like what he saw when the collective was raised, so he said all the soda had to go. We compromised on leaving 4 cases behind, and that was due to my platoon sergeant (same guy with the bigger hammer mentality) – he didn’t take any guff from Warrant Officers – and the beverages belonged to him. That bird had the command set installed, armored seats and other warlike goodies; we all had full field gear and weapons, plus C-Rats - I don’t remember the fuel load, probably not max as we weren’t near a POL point, and I highly doubt that it was anywhere close to 100 degrees that day; but yeah, that needle was right at the redline. The reason this stands out in my memory is that it ain’t everyday you see two grown men argue heatedly over Coca-Cola and Seven-Up. I was tired, dirty and wanted to go home, and we were all kinda FOCUSED on that torque meter. The area wasn’t too confined, or we wouldn’t have left at all, and then there would’ve been a fistfight over “Have a Coke and a Smile” and the “Uncola”.



I don’t know how the 540 blades would compare to the STD rotor and blades on the H model, lift-wise anyway. Every time I’ve attempted to make an aerodynamic assessment based on logic - I’m thinking about propellers and thrust here – I’ve been wrong, so I leave that to the experts!

I know the 540 blades on the Cobra were much wider, of course the Cobra didn’t have the stabilizer bar and dampers, it had SCAS. I dimly remember something about the 540 blades on the Mike model being shorter; I think the H model had a 48 ft rotor diameter, the M model somewhat less. That might cancel out the wider chord advantage if the same smaller rotor diameter is true of the E model – but see above about my unbroken record of being dead wrong with regard to aerodynamics, propeller dynamics, and I’m sure rotor dynamics. At any rate, the only experience I have with the Mike model is walking around a National Guard aircraft that was visiting Sabre Army Airfield, and listening to the older guys who actually knew something about it; and I saw a Charlie model (I think) up on a pole at either Rucker or Ft. Campbell.

Thinking about the blades on the Cobra reminds me of the cracks one of our TI’s found. I had just arrived at the home of the puking buzzards, and we were still operating out of Clarksville Base, as the airfield at Sabre wasn’t finished yet. We had old Quonset Huts for maintenance, and concrete bunkers for operations offices. Pretty primitive, but the Cav was like a step-child to the mighty 101st.

During my time in Army Aviation, I tried my very best to avoid having anything to do with the AH-1’s - I firmly believed that maintenance on those aircraft was best left to the snake platoon (67 Yankees?). That was a miserable aircraft to turn wrenches on (for me anyway, others got along just fine), it was like someone closed the hangar doors on a Huey and left no room to access anything. But my status as a private meant that I was detailed to help anyone, and since they were removing the blades I was to be an extra pair of hands. I hadn’t seen the cracks, since they were on top of the blades, but up on a work stand I had my first look. They were pretty scary cracks, several inches long chord-wise, at about mid span on both blades.

It wasn’t uncommon to have blade damage, especially after being in the field, and it’s amazing how some “twigs” could cause blade strike damage consisting of deep grooves near the end of the blades. That was always the story though, they only hit “twigs”, and they never went through branches like a lawn mower….

But the cracks in those Cobra blades were serious business, serious enough to have a Bell tech rep look at them. It was speculated that because that aircraft had the 20mm installed, that might have something to do with it, but I only heard that through the grapevine, being a lowly private I wasn’t privy to those conversations. I did help the Bell rep inspect the blades, don’t remember if he did an ultrasonic or eddy current inspection, probably ultrasonic, since my participation consisted of being a “gofer” and keeping my mouth shut.

We never had any other cracks like that show up, so it must’ve been an isolated incident, or maybe they changed something with the armament installation. I never heard one way or the other, because, as I said, I tried to stay away from the Cobras, but man, if those cracks weren’t discovered in time, it was gonna ruin somebody’s day for sure.

H.R. the E is the Navy gunship. Mostly the same as the Charlie (L11 ) and Mike ( L13 ). Has a rotor brake, different A/C power system, all aluminum tail boom, no magnesium. The gun system consisted of 4 fixed M60, two seven shot rocket pods and two door gunners with M60s on flexible mounts. No fancy sight, just grease pencil marks on the wind screen.

The Echo morphed into the HH1K and later the TH-1L.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

1992 at Fairchild. I well remember one of the day hikes to a set of coordinates in order to vector the UH-1N to our position; each student got a shot at the compass and PRC-90. "Fly heading 150. New heading 165, Ready, ready, MARK!; directly overhead." On another day we got to ride the jungle penetrator (in an open field) up the the N-model. After a few of us were aboard, they landed, let us off, and climbed back up for the next group. Good times.

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

Been there, done that!
Also at the water school at Homestead, you'd parasail off a barge then disconnect the lines so you'd parachute into the water. Ditch your chute and manually deply your one main raft by blowing it up like a child's pool toy. A boat would come by and get your chute leaving you out there for 90 minutes to practice signalling and stuff. Eventually a UH-1N would come by and you'd strap onto the hoist. They'd take you half way up, and lower you again.
That way you got to expeience a water hoist without bringing seawater into the helicopter. Fun days...

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Hurricane Andrew tore up Homestead in '92 so my orders there were cx'd at the last minute. We got to do all of what you described in the pool at Fairchild. What a rip-off.