HeloDude

I guess I'll weigh in on this issue since this is the airframe I'm currently in. Hueys are a lot of fun to fly and from what I've heard from people who have flown multiple airframes, pretty tough to fly since we don't have any of the newer systems that the other helos have (it's all hands). Having said all that, the mission is where the Huey lacks. We are the only MWS that does not deploy, ie you can spend your whole career in a UH-1N and never go overseas. Other than the school houses, the only missions for the Hueys are space/missle support, flying DV's around DC or Tokyo, or flying for the survival school and doing civil SAR (I'm biased but by far the best Huey assignment). The leadership here at the survival school (who are all tactical helicopter guys) always tell us to get out of the Huey. They tell us of you want to make rank, have a chance for upper level staff posistions and commands, etc then you need to crossflow to a tactical airframe or another airframe. On another note, a lot of Huey pilots I've spoken to love the flying (flying a helicopter is a blast regardless) and love being home almost every night with their family as well. So basically it all depends on what you want to do. A lot of us in the Huey community are keeping our fingers crossed for a tactical crossflow. Others as I've just mentioned are perfectly content with bouncing around the other Huey bases, never seeing anything overseas or being involved in anything tactical, and being content with the fact that it will be tough to make O-5. Hope some of this helps. A lot of the information the other guys have given is great info as well, not to mention most of them have been in many years longer than I have. I just thought I'd give my $0.02 as well. [ 24. February 2006, 15:35: Message edited by: HeloDude ]

If you want a change from the typical bar scene downtown on Central (though Maloney's is actually pretty decent) try going to Billy's Long Bar north on San Mateo and Horse and Angel (really hot waitresses) that's northeast of the base I think near Montgomery but I could very well be wrong. Those places are pretty cool and the crowd sometimes is a little better than dealing with the typical Albuquerque locals you see downtown.

On the Huey we have a WSPS on the bottom of the front nose as well as the top center area of the front windshield. Assuming you're flying towards the wires above or below the botton and top WSPS's, the wire will (should) still be cut. I believe in the Army they still teach their students how to fly below powerlines since they also fly NOE. [ 14. February 2006, 03:37: Message edited by: HeloDude ]

Ahh, I don't think it's that difficult, however it is pretty darn tough. They're an interesting bunch that's for sure. I enjoyed how they thought they knew our regs/procedures better than we did. All around though, good group of guys.

You can also be a Combat Control Officer as well.

CRO's are not actually PJ's, nor do they possess all they training that PJ's have. I recently found out that they won't even go out on actual CSAR missions, they'll basically just run the show from the CP. [ 02. February 2006, 12:40: Message edited by: HeloDude ]

OSI. You're a federal agent and you get to carry a gun with you wherever you go, even when you're not on duty.

I so second (or third) the trip to Austin. That town rocks and actually made the Texas Tour in the Tweet not too bad. Get yourself some cajun food at the New Orleans type resturaunt, get some flaming Dr Peppers at the bar which name escapes me right now, find some hot chicks in one of the clubs, and have some fun. Can you tell I really miss hanging out at Austin?

And sometimes Helo dudes forget that that their helo's are so ugly, that the air simply repels them. Hoser

And here I was thinking that the *reason* to fly airplanes close together was to be able to penetrate weather. <whacks self on foreskull>

13,999' doing HALO Jumps in a UH-1N...and yes, the controls are quite sluggish at this altitude. Now, what alitude I like to tell people I've flow at...50' down a windy dried up river bed canyon.

The only rating I care about is the one I received when I got my wings. Ok, not that funny, but true though.

The Lycoming T53-703. Check the website https://www.uniflight.com/huey.html

The UH-1N burns 600 pph. We can carry 2003#'s with mains and aux. I know it's not saying much, but we can stop and hover and make a cool 'wap wap wap' sound.

They opened the area to student solos with a cloud deck in the top half of your area? Where did you fly Tweets Bender? I remember at Del Rio if there were any clouds at all in the low areas, they wouldn't open it up to solo students...it had to be almost severe clear.

Yeah, I saw 274 KIAS more than once on my area solos. Kind of gets the heart beating a little bit faster.

I think Rucker has already received a few of these new Huey II's. Kind of funny, guys can go from a Tweet, to a glass cockpit Huey II, and then go to the N model Huey and be right back in the stone age.

I have to agree though with the fact that you definitely get the college experience more out of going the rotc route than the zoo. I studied my ass off and got to go to UPT...but I gurantee I drank a lot more beer and hooked up with a lot more chicks than most academy guys did. But on the flip side coin of that argument is that a lot of my buddies I went to UPT with who were zoomies were a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with on the weekends in Acuna. So in the end, doesn't really matter.

Don't forget about the helo track. I know most UPT instructors shy guys away from going to helicopters, but that's simply because most of them have no clue about the type of mission and flying they do. Trust me, they're a blast to fly and have some of the best people that you'll ever meet. My one buddy had great insight about track selects: "There's no such thing as a bad track...just bad drops"

Does it really matter?

Does anyone out there (Rotorhead possibly?) have any recent info on the progress of the CV-22, ie, when the first one will be delivered to Kirtland, when they will start shifting 53 or Huey guys to be trained, etc. I asked our assignments guy when he came here to visit a couple months ago and am checking to see if anyone knows of any updates. I know this will probaly start a thread of badmouthing the Osprey, but hey, I like it.