HeloDude

I love this logic. So what do the bean counters consider 'necessary sorties'? I technically see that as actual missions (other than training) as well as the minimum amount of training sorties needed to maintain currency. I guess we don't need to be proficient anymore...current will do. As the flight hours as well as manpower are cut throughout the Air Force in the near future, it will be interesting to see if there will be an increase in aircraft mishaps as well.

I left XL in early June of 03' to head to Rucker. There was a time when I was there that we weren't allowed to cross the border and later the wing king made the 0130 curfew...however not many of the students as well as IP's followed it. As for the show, we all heard that had gone away in Boy's Town. Though we still went to Boy's Town to watch their shoe shows.

You can take the long 2+ hour drive to Del Rio and then go party in Acuna across the border. They let just about anyone in their bars as long as they have $$$. Fun times hanging out with the Mexican girls (and we never had any clue how old they were). Hey, it was Del Rio, what the hell else were you going to do? Also I've heard that the border town across from Laredo has a donkey show that's pretty how do we say 'interesting'. Me and my buddies were going to watch one back when we were at XL but were told Acuna got rid of theirs...ahh, good ol' Boy's Town.

Not too sure when/what you're referring to bud. I went through when it was still half Army/Air Force and we never got to do anything like NOE. Maybe the old school Air Force rotor guys got to do it back when they did all their time at Rucker vs flying half of UPT in the Tweet. I wonder how the standards are with the contract IP's now that it's under an Air Force syllabus. I remember that no matter how bad me or the guys in my class flew, they would never hook you. Now flying with the Air Force IP's...that was another story. [ 13. March 2006, 23:33: Message edited by: HeloDude ]

The word is that very few Paves will be given out anymore to Rucker studs...though you'll prob see it on an occassion or two depending on the individual and AFPC needs. As for the CV-22, my guess is you won't see those being dropped out of Rucker for atleast another year if not two. Still waiting to see if the idea of every Rucker guy going to Huey's first is going to take effect in the future or not.

"...Why didn't I take the 'blue' pill??"

They can. One of my IP's out at Kirtland flew C-12's in Pakistan and then came back to the Huey. I've also heard of guys from Andrews switching airframes from the Huey to E-3s, etc though I'm sure that's a rare exception, not the norm. It will be interesting to see what they're going to do with all of us. The Huey communtiy is well overmanned from what I hear from our leadership.

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.