Best Helicopter

[plan_D]

Oh, those AH-6 Little Birds are mean little ones. OH-6 is the Cayuse, ain't it?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeap sure is, Cayuse but everyone calls them Little Birds. I have some more pics that I found on my computer. I will post them tomorrow because I need to get to bed, ive got a real early show tomorrow.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Okay here are some pics that I thought were pretty good. These were taken on my deployment to Kosovo.

[evangilder]

Great shots! From the cold of Bosnia to the heat of Iraq. Man, you have had some temperature changes!

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeah sure did. I enjoyed Kosovo though, it was terrible to see what had happened there but just being able to work so closely with aviation units from foriegn countries especially the British, Germans, Italians, and Greek was really neat. I met a lot of great people and still have contacts with them and it was a great experience and one that I will not forget.

[evangilder]

That'll be a great experience to tell your kids and grand-kids about.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Oh I dont want my kids knowing about what we did until they are older, they might want to go out and try it. Get a bunch of German, US, and British aviators together and some wiered stuff happens.

[evangilder]

heheh yep. Some stories need to be later, for sure. Some can be told ay a younger age relatively safely. I am sure wisdom will prevail.

[Nonskimmer]

Great Kosovo helo pics, Adler. Actually they're all great.
The grey, shark toothed Apache looks awesome! It's the first grey one I've ever seen, I think.

It is great to make contacts and buddies from all over the world.

[plan_D]

Hey, Adler, I was just wondering. What helicopters are you actually trained to fly?

[lesofprimus]

He's not a pilot, he's a crew chief.....

[plan_D]

Damn it! Where's that face thing gone... Man that took me a long time to find...

Okay, let me re-phrase that..WHAT helicopters have you worked on!?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I am qualified to work on all army helicopters except for the Chinooks. My MOS is actually only for the UH-60 Blackhawk though and that is all that I work on. The way it works in the army is you go to regular Basic Training for 9 weeks, then you to your AIT (Advanced Individual Training)For my MOS which is 15T I had to go to Fort Eustis, Virginia for 14 weeks. That place is awesome right next to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Both places great places to Party on Weekends. There you learn just the basics about aircraft maintenance and learn about the particular aircraft that youa re going to specialize in. Upon graduation from this school you go to first assignment. Once you get there you are placed into a Maintenance Company where all you do is learn the advanced stuff from experienced mechanics. After you have spent some time if you want to when a flight slot opens up you can move into a Flight Company and be a Crew Chief. There you have to go through about 2 to 3 months of Flight Training (not pilot training but you get the basics of how to land a helicopter encase something happens to the pilots. pretty much just simulater time). A Crew Chief sits behind the pilots and has several duties. 2 Crewchiefs are assigned to each aircraft in the flight company and it is our duty to maintain them. Once you are a Crew Chief you have shown that you are an expert in repairing and fixing the aircraft so you dont really do that stuff much anymore but we do all the inspections on the aircraft, do minor repairs, and stuff but other wise we supervise the mechanics in the major repairs. A lot of it is tedious small things like washing the aircraft, cleaning windows and stuff like that. We all try and have the best looking bird in the fleet. Whenever you aircraft flies you go with it as the technical expert on the aircraft. You sit behind the pilots in 2 outward facing seats. We are help out with the navigation and making radio calls. This is where the stuerdess part of it comes in. We are not so attractive overqualified and glorified stuaredesses. We are responsible for the safety of the passengers, we have to passenger briefs kind of like stuardesses do in the airlines and stuff like that. When in Combat situations we are responsible for the defence of the aircraft. Basically we are the door gunners, the army no longer uses infantry as door gunner you have to be a flight trained crewchief or flight trained door gunner in combat. The gunnery training is really great, getting to fly around an arial gunnery range shooting at pop up targets and vehicals and stuff it kind of gives you this old Vietnam Door Gunner feeling. The best part of the job is the fact that when in the aircraft you are god, it does not matter what rank the passengers have, they can be a 4 star General and what you says goes and if they refuse to listen you can kick them off of the aircraft. Do to the fact that you are responsible for the safety of them you can even tackle them, if they are walking into the tail roter or something it is great! I have tackled some very high ranking profile people before and nothing has happened to me! I love it! MUHAHA, MUHAHA
Anyways it is a great job and the mechanics want to be you and hate you at the same time until they see the hard work that really does go into being a Crew Chief. They think we just fly and go home, but once they get a taste of it they quickly change there mind. But hell we work hard, but we play hard!

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I have been a Crew Chief now for 3 and half years and have about 1200 hours of flight time, of that 363 of it is imminant danger time and as of today 650 of it is combat time.

Oh I forgot to add this into the mechanic/Crewchief thing. In AIT you learn the basics. There are 27 technical manuals, each with thousands of pages in them on how to repair the blackhawk. Lets say that a Hydraulic Pump fails on my aircraft I go and get the book, it tells me steps A though whatever how to replace it. Once you are in the mechanic company you learn the fine details and the tricks of the trade. All aircraft have the same type of manuals, some more than others like the Huey has only one manual but the concept is the same so if you give me an Apache Manual and tell me what is wrong I can fix it. The only aircraft they will not let me work on is the Chinook.

[Nonskimmer]

That sounds like an awesome job. And the pics are cool too.