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Army grounds Chinook helicopters

Hobo Hilton

Hobo Hilton

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Minuteman
Jun 4, 2011
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Crazy. Had a pair of them fly over while I was at work a couple weeks ago. They're hard to ignore.

I'd have to ask dad the details, but many moons ago I think he watched one ditch in the swamp down at Ft Stewart... IIRC everyone walked away but it made a hell of a mess and was quite the ordeal to recover.

Mike
 
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OkieMike said:
Crazy. Had a pair of them fly over while I was at work a couple weeks ago. They're hard to ignore.

I'd have to ask dad the details, but many moons ago I think he watched one ditch in the swamp down at Ft Stewart... IIRC everyone walked away but it made a hell of a mess and was quite the ordeal to recover.

Mike
Click to expand...
The story got my attention, also. I have one flying over my house as we speak. Fighting a wild land fire near Lolo, MT in the Bitterroot Mountains.
One went down south of here recently.

fireaviation.com

Brief initial report released about the Chinook crash into Salmon River - Fire Aviation

The US Forest Service has released a brief initial report about the July 21 crash of the Boeing CH-47D helicopter in the Salmon River while working on the Moose Fire 20 air miles northwest of Salmon, Idaho. The two pilots were killed. Below is the complete text of the narrative section of the...
fireaviation.com fireaviation.com
 
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Hobo Hilton said:
The story got my attention, also. I have one flying over my house as we speak. Fighting a wild land fire near Lolo, MT in the Bitterroot Mountains.
One went down south of here recently.

fireaviation.com

Brief initial report released about the Chinook crash into Salmon River - Fire Aviation

The US Forest Service has released a brief initial report about the July 21 crash of the Boeing CH-47D helicopter in the Salmon River while working on the Moose Fire 20 air miles northwest of Salmon, Idaho. The two pilots were killed. Below is the complete text of the narrative section of the...
fireaviation.com fireaviation.com
Click to expand...
I want to say in the incident dad witnessed (somewhere between '76-79) they had rigged up a vehicle to be lifted. Strap broke on one corner, vehicle started to swing, threw everything off balance... Down she went.

Been a while since he told me the story... Like before I could drive... So the details are a bit fuzzy now. Lol.

He also told me another story about somebody bogging down a tracked vehicle (dozer maybe) in the swamp... And to his knowledge they never got it out. He said it was still stuck out there when he got out in '79... Possible that it's still there today.

He never saw combat but he has some wild stories considering he was a peacetime wrench operator.

Mike
 
So there's a bad fuel line or whatever....It's not like it's never happen before. Pretty standard thing to shut down OPS until the problem is found then a specific corrective action is taken. BTW there's only a small number that are still from the 1960's (read the backbone of the aircraft can be traced back to 1960's).
 
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So bad O rings...
To bad they wont investigate how that happened and deal with it...
 
Maybe that's why we always did practice jumps out the back of them ?
Got my blood wings jumping out of one ?
 
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Eli17L said:
So bad O rings...
To bad they wont investigate how that happened and deal with it...
Click to expand...


Wrong. They will figure it out...trust me. We did this PLENTY of times. There's ALWAYS a scrub at the end, it's commonly published in military notices.
 
Always thought they were a cool aircraft, hopefully they get this sorted with minimal down time and $$
 
Eli17L said:
I hope your correct I just don't ever see true accountability happening anymore.
Click to expand...

I am correct. After 16 years in Army aviation, specifically CH-47s, I can speak to the process. The process to discover what happened isn't airframe specific either. There's A LOT of people at work right now reviewing maintenance records, as well as supply records to uncover where the problem started.
It could be as easy as the wrong part in the wrong bin location, or as bad as a parts contractor supplied the wrong parts.
 
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TurboTrout said:
Always thought they were a cool aircraft, hopefully they get this sorted with minimal down time and $$
Click to expand...

Well that's the rub. The engines are not specific to what side they are used on. So if the repair process can be done on the aircraft that might help. But then if the repair requires engine removal it's quite a bit of work. So you could end up repairing the left side engine while on the aircraft, while you need to remove the right side engine...or vice versa. Or you might need to remove the engine regardless of what side it's mounted on.

Way back we went thru an issue with the engine transmissions. We had to remove all of them, determine the corrosion issues with the mount points, then determine if we could swap them side-to-side, or just reject them back to Depot level repair. What a pain. Took us about 2 weeks of solid work. Removal work, inspections, install (or replace) everything we took off, then technical inspections, then ground runs to make sure all was good, then a Maintenance Test Flight. WHEW!! At least everyday we knew what we had to do for work. LOL
 
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Not the first time. They grounded them in 98/99 ish because the something about the mesh gears were fucking up and they were crashing. A few at the 101st went down while I was there.
 
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I rode in one once. I noticed a hydraulic line dripping, and when I said something to the crewman, he said to keep an eye on it and let him know if it STOPPED dripping, because that meant we were out of fluid and were going down. Very confidence inspiring. 😆
 
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JoshPutman said:
I rode in one once. I noticed a hydraulic line dripping, and when I said something to the crewman, he said to keep an eye on it and let him know if it STOPPED dripping, because that meant we were out of fluid and were going down. Very confidence inspiring. 😆
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Wait till your at 1700agl in C23, the ramp goes down, all of the ceiling tiles fall out. The loadmaster just laughed, green light comes on, and we exit like nothing happened
 
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We see them pretty often around here, there is an NAS here....in the middle of Kansas no less that has them, why the navy is in kansas I guess is for another thread.

I live a hop skip and jump from Whiteman where the B2 live, so seeing them is no big deal. They fly over the Chief's games and they fly right over my house on the way back.

What is interesting are the things flying around that we never see, transports very low to the ground, I would guess 2000' AGL or lower, (I flew bug smashers and think I am a good judge on how high a plane is). As well as fighters flying both high and low. You just don't see them around here that often, now it is at least once a week. But with the quiet buildups in Poland I can understand it.

Back 20 years ago Whiteman had Cobras based out there, and they would fly very low around where I live. One of the pilots knew the guy that lived behind me so he would come in low and hover in his back field. One night I ran out on my deck right at dusk, just enough light to see well, not quite dark yet. I flashed my flash light at him and the chin gun turned and pointed right at me, so darn cool.

One of the city people that came to live out there so little Molly could have her horse called and bitched and the low flights stopped. He was not well liked after that and moved shortly after.
 
@fpgt72 Fort Riley, KS has an Army aviation element. Not to mention the NAS you might be speaking of has long been closed. Most likely it's being operated by the KS state GOV. So if the aviation facilities are operating you will see just about any aircraft there, perhaps for fuel or any other function.

As I suspected from the internet:

Johnson County, Kansas, acquired the property in 1973 and it is currently operated as a regional airport known as the Johnson County New Century Air Center. The overall landscape and many of the built resources that comprised the ONAS remain intact and actively in use.
 
WOW....even better info about the aviation unit at the ONAS.

Cover story: A history of the Olathe Naval Air Station

The Prairie Navy landed in Johnson County eight decades ago with the construction and opening of the Olathe Naval Air Station. The site is now the New Century AirCenter.
www.jocogov.org www.jocogov.org

The main hangar with control tower houses the U.S. Army Reserve's Bravo Company, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, and CH-47 Chinook helicopters. A helicopter from the unit was shot down in Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011. Thirty American service personnel, including five crew members, were among the 38 casualties. In 2021, the unit’s hangar was named in honor of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bryan J. Nichols, the helicopter pilot.
 
fpgt72 said:
Click to expand...

Thanks for that! That guy’s a great story teller…

OT: My only experience in the “shit hook” was in AFG flying with the Brits from Kandahar back to Kabul… I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘new’ but that was the best maintained chopper I’d ever been on. Very clean…which means not used in anger in my experience.

Anyway, I usually took that little charter route in STOL aircraft (don’t recall what they were flying) run by Blackwater or whatever they’re called now, or just a 60 if heading out to a FOB (NATO Liaison Officer at tne time, so yeah, a Fobbit).
Can’t say I miss it…. LOL
 
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HeavyAssault said:
@fpgt72 Fort Riley, KS has an Army aviation element. Not to mention the NAS you might be speaking of has long been closed. Most likely it's being operated by the KS state GOV. So if the aviation facilities are operating you will see just about any aircraft there, perhaps for fuel or any other function.

As I suspected from the internet:

Johnson County, Kansas, acquired the property in 1973 and it is currently operated as a regional airport known as the Johnson County New Century Air Center. The overall landscape and many of the built resources that comprised the ONAS remain intact and actively in use.
Click to expand...

Back in my day we called it Industrial, but now they call it new century. They have the air show there now every year, it is really rough on me walking so I can't go anymore.

After RG closed they bounced the airshow around, once it was at whiteman, another was downtown, looks like out in gardner is the choice this year.
 
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This one is flying over my place while fighting a fire near Lolo, MT

IMG_7147 - Copy.JPGIMG_7149 - Copy.JPG
 
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I didn't even know they were still in service. I haven't seen one since I was a kid. Always thought the double rotors looked ridiculous and awesome at the same time.
 
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JoshPutman said:
I rode in one once. I noticed a hydraulic line dripping, and when I said something to the crewman, he said to keep an eye on it and let him know if it STOPPED dripping, because that meant we were out of fluid and were going down. Very confidence inspiring. 😆
Click to expand...

Good thread.

My dad was a plank owner in 11th Air Assault and picked up one of the first Chinooks as it’s crew chief from the factory. He always had a drum or two of hydraulic fluid in the bird. Told me when I went in that if I did not see some fluid then the bird was out of it. Lol.

Maintenance is the engine that sets the pace in the military and is the main reason for or against combat readiness.

One of my dad’s last assignments was training officers on maintenance procedures and how those are tied to readiness. His last was sitting on the board that looked at the failures around Eagle Claw. He said the mission failed when they did not embark a full maintenance team and test pilots with the helicopters onto the Nimitz despite flagging the helicopter readiness as a decisive point during planning. This was not the only failure point.

After he retired he still got to go to the factory and Campbell every few months to check things out and loved every minute of it.

Going back to the story. The Chinook has two engines and can fly on one if it’s not too loaded or too hot. But engine fires are bad news. It’s the right decision to ground them.

Yes there are lots of non mil chinooks flying but likely they don’t share parts with the Army ones.
 
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Maser said:
I didn't even know they were still in service. I haven't seen one since I was a kid. Always thought the double rotors looked ridiculous and awesome at the same time.
Click to expand...
Yep. Newer models are bad angus. Huge mission radius and big payloads and high ceilings make them the best craft for a lot of missions. They can also land just about anywhere and have some interesting and useful flight envelopes. They can also land in water.
 
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OkieMike said:
Crazy. Had a pair of them fly over while I was at work a couple weeks ago. They're hard to ignore.

I'd have to ask dad the details, but many moons ago I think he watched one ditch in the swamp down at Ft Stewart... IIRC everyone walked away but it made a hell of a mess and was quite the ordeal to recover.

Mike
Click to expand...
My former home in Ozark was backed up to Ft Rucker, not sure if it was Hatch or Knox stage field that they flew out of, but the main departure route was right over my house. After a while you barely notice, unless it's really low.
 
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I was wondering why I hadn't seen any fly in and out of Hunter AAB the last few days. Usually you can't look up without seeing a few, or UH60s for that matter. Saw an Apache with rocket pods and missile racks flying pretty low on Wednesday, thought that was cool.

What I really wanna know is why I keep seeing Pave Lows fly over when I thought they'd been removed from service. Who keeps calling in that killstreak and why aren't you using the Harrier Strike instead?
 
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