It ain’t a Jeep, but…

[Deleted]

Just thought y’all might like a closer look at my all-time most favorite ride. We don’ need no stinkin’ four-wheel drive!

[Deleted]

Very cool! I bet you are loving this film. This dude sure is tough...but did you feel safe in it? It's so small! Some of the clips reminded me of B17s in WW2 that suffered crazy damage, but still got the crews home.

[Deleted]

“Safe” is a relative term in a combat zone. The bird I flew had some ballistic armor on the pilot’s seat. I wore a “Chicken Plate” (Chest Armor). My trust in the reliability and crash survivability of the OH-6A was based on the design, personal inspection of crash-damaged aircraft and some limited pilot accounts. BUT. I was 19 years old at the time. What did you fear at 19? I was a kid with a Howard Hughes sports car.

[Deleted]

Excellent video. The rotor that hit the tree amazed me. Not much there, but to survive that hit is a testament to design and materials. Still, there are lots of parts that are holding your butt in the air. Failure of anything that keeps the rotors intact could be fatal. You can't auto rotate in without them. Sorta like loosing the top wing in a bi plane. You aren't going to do well. In hot air balloning, hitting a power line is usually fatal. There are 1/4 inch cables sewn into the envelope of the ballon. A electrical high voltage short cuts them off like a hot knife through butter. If the short doesn't kill you, the propane explosion or fall to the ground will. At 19 I was ready to fly in anything. At 62, I'm not. Oilly

[Deleted]

Very cool!, thank you Sir for posting as well.

[Deleted]

Oily, this will probably help you understand what I learned and taught.

[Deleted]

Love that! exit sign, Tilt meter, and is that the Golden Arches on his helmet? I've flown in the little Bells and a Jet Ranger, but not a Loach. I was very impressed with the Jet Ranger. When In Forestry School I met a Vietnam vet who got shot down 4 or 5 times in a Hewey. He said he hated the flack jackets. He simply laid them on the floor and sat on one. His goal was to get a college degree and then fly choppers for the Forest Service. We had fire school while working for the Forest Service, and helicopters were part of the training. I liked it all except the fire. Fire is just too hot and smokey. Also met a guy that had the handle on ebay as "Dusty Rider". I asked what that meant and he said he served in Nam in Dustoff. The poor medics in the slicks that had to go into a fire zone to pick up wounded in a unarmed Hewey. They got the crap shot out of them. Been way more fun to be in a Cobra shooting back. Douglas Skyraiders were cool too. Wild and crazy guys you were. Thanks for your service Bud! Oilly

[Deleted]

"Dust-off" crews were the real heroes over there. They went in unarmed and did get the snot kicked out of them. We protected them as closely as we could. I've probably mentioned this somewhere else, the front seat in a Cobra was the chicken plate support on the tip of a fast broomstick. When the weapons in the chin turret failed the Peter P was just that. Watching white and green tracers streaming right at your nose is a thrill I will not repeat anytime soon. I did it once. "Sandy" was a good friend to us from the Central Highlands up to Firebase One at Khe Sanh. Down south, in IV Corps, we had Navy and Air Force fast movers for support when the Cobras weren't enough.

[Deleted]

Cool video! Thank you!

[Ryan_M]

Great video Scout, thanks for posting. Are there many OH-6's still patrolling the skies these days?

And I was intrigued by the statement "...direct maintenance man hours are less than one half-hour per hour of flight." Initially, that seemed really high....but after pondering it for a very short while I am sure I am at a much higher ratio of "maintenance man hours to per hour of driving" on my Jeep.

[Deleted]

I’m not sure of the actual number still around today. Good designs never die. You are aware that Mcdonnell-Douglas bought the tooling and rights to it and are now building the MD-500. Now Boeing is involved. Here is the current list of active variants.

AH-6C
Special Operations attack version. Modified OH-6A to carry weapons and operate as a light attack aircraft for the 160th SOAR(A).

EH-6E
Special Operations electronic warfare, command-post version.

MH-6E
Improved attack helicopter used by US Army special forces units, and stealthy light attack and transport helicopter for US Army special forces units.

AH-6F
Special Operations attack version.

AH-6G
Special Operations attack version.

MH-6H
Special Operations version.

AH/MH-6J
Improved special operations transport and attack versions. Updated light attack helicopter based on the MD 530MG and equipped with an improved engine, FLIR, and a GPS/inertial navigation system.

AH/MH-6M
Also occasionally referred to as the Mission Enhanced Little Bird (MELB), it is a highly modified version of the MD 530 series commercial helicopter.[6] All MH-6 helicopters to be modernized to MH-6M standard by 2015.

A/MH-6X
An AH/MH-6M MELB helicopter modified for use as a UAV. It builds upon experience gained through development of the Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) Demonstrator, which is a civil MD 530F modified for autonomous UAV flight. Boeing has announced that this version is marketed solely to other nations, not the U.S., for use as a low-cost attack helicopter.[8] However, Boeing is planning to enter it in the U.S. Army’s Armed Aerial Scout program.

KUS-VH
Korean Air Aerospace Division (KAL-ASD) have developed an armed, unmanned version of the Little Bird with Korean armed forces in mind. The KUS-VH is unlike Boeing's H-6U Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) in that, the former is completely unmanned while Boeing's ULB may be operated either manned or unmanned. The vehicle can be controlled from a ground station. However, Gareth Jennings of Jane's International Defense Review suggests the platform may be employed in a 'manned-unmanned teaming' (MUM-T) system alongside the AH-64E in a scouting/recon role to facilitate 'over the horizon' maneuvers to flush out enemy forces. Further, the Republic of Korea has over 150 MH-6 Little Bird's which can be, on request converted to the design.