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I know what it's like to pilot a UH1-D "Huey". Our pilots had me and the CE train on flying it if they got hit. Nothing was mentioned about landing the sucker, so I'm happy to say we never had to do either. When you're using both hands, both feet, and both eyes, it scared the crap out of me. I was just a dumb old doorgunner. This is a great story, if you like rotary winged aircraft, and NO I haven't seen Black Hawk Down, and don't intend to.
There might be sexier flying jobs in the military, but there aren’t more rewarding ones.
When most people find out you’re a Black Hawk pilot, the first question you can anticipate is, “Have you seen Black Hawk Down?” Yep, read the books, too. I crack up when I see Jeremy Piven slamming levers around like he’s closing a truck trailer. It’s telling that the thing most people relate to this helicopter dates from the first half of the 90’s.
There might be sexier flying jobs in the military, but there aren’t more rewarding ones.
When most people find out you’re a Black Hawk pilot, the first question you can anticipate is, “Have you seen Black Hawk Down?” Yep, read the books, too. I crack up when I see Jeremy Piven slamming levers around like he’s closing a truck trailer. It’s telling that the thing most people relate to this helicopter dates from the first half of the 90’s.
Here’s What It’s Like To Be A Black Hawk Pilot
Posted from taskandpurpose.com
AH-64D Pilot
152H: AH-64D Attack Pilot
152F: AH-64A Attack Pilot
Flying
Posted >1 y ago
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We had the Australian 171st Aviation Squadron, from 2nd Commando Regiment flying us around Pakistan Kashmir & North Western Frontier Mountains, as they were part of the JTF, and those guy's were crazy,we helped them out, and they helped us. When we departed the Task Force they gave us a signed photo of them flying over the Sydney Opera House with the Prime Minister, they fly him all over Australia. The photo was for are Battalion so when we linked back up with main HQ element we gave it to them, was in a nice frame and engraved, that is how much they liked us. I liked flying with them, but can't say I like the black hawk as much as V22-Osprey, out of all the HELO type transports.
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SGT (Join to see)
CPO (Join to see),Well, I learned pretty quick each pilot has their own groove. It's like fingerprints. There's no two of them alike, but they're all damned good. I've never been in an Osprey so I can't compare. Is the Osprey able to take a lot of hits? That's the only deciding factor I could compare.
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CPO (Join to see)
SGT (Join to see) - Don't know never took fire in one. In AFG was in a Chinook mission bird flying low map earth stuff coming back from a SOF/VSP camp to KAF, around 04:00 and we all saw a flash and the Pilot did a hard left, this was inside a big wadi by the way, those guy's can fly. I've flown in Chinook's, Black Hawks and CH-53, and my last deployment was able to fly in Ospray, and it was a smooth ride even in AFG.
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I was always amazed by the skill and courage sometimes bordering on insanity of the "Huey" pilots and crews we had in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in a lot of cases this was flying into triple canopy jungle with the NVA shooting their 51 cal.machine guns,besides such things as low cloud cover,monsoon rains down drafts from the mountains etc. amazing simply freaking amazing!
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SGT (Join to see)
SGT Philip Roncari That's why we're called "The Flying Lunatic's". You can get a shirt with that on it.
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SGT Philip Roncari
SGT Keith Bodine-And to top it off a lot of the Warrant Officer pilots were younger than me and I was twenty at the time!
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