No offence taken, nor intended. I have a love of these birds that goes back to the early 80’s.
I have rappeled out, parachuted out, helocast out, and stumbled out of more than I can remember. Maybe even engaged in activities not intended for family viewing.
I will be happy to call it anything you like. Except Big Sexy. That was my call sign in Iraq, and it had nothing to do with me being big or sexy. It was derived from my other position on the team as the S3X.
I’m open to suggestions.
Worked a bit with the In Theatre Rescue Teams (IRT) in Iraq in 2003, they then went on to become Medical Emergency Response Teams (MERT) in Afghanistan and their Chinooks. Jump forward 20 years to Sept this year and I was privileged to be in the audience for a talk by Liz McGonaghy (aka Gloria Stitz) who crewed Chinooks. She has a book out, well worth the read. Chinny Chick
No, I get it. It’s certainly an awesome machine that can pull off whatever mission you assign it. I mean, there’s a reason it’s been around as long as it has. She keeps getting better with age too!
And no correction needed Sir, you’ve earned the right to call her whatever you want. I guess us Hooker folks can get somewhat defensive of the Ol’ Gal from time to time.
I only have a ridden once in Chinook. Was a great trip, till the pilot decided to fly through a canyon. Since I could not see which side was which I had to use the barf bag. A RAF sarge across the heli used 3 bags during the trip, so I didn’t do too bad…
Typical RAF. … no stamina lol
Thats rough, 3 bags worth makes for a miserable ride.
We didn’t have bags to hand out so we told the pax that if they needed to barf, do it in their kevlar and take it with them. Terrible I know.
I watched a young 11 Bravo out in NTC at Ft. Erwin do just that.
I could see him getting ready to puke while we were landing. I tapped his helmet and motioned for him to use his K-pot not the floor. He took off his helmet and held it in his lap. We landed and all the pax stood and shuffled out off the ramp. The poor kid was last to go, jumped off the ramp onto the LZ while still hugging his kevlar, took two steps and barfed a whole MRE’s worth into it!
I guess you can never say he can/t follow flight crew instructions!
I can’t help but imagine what that thing smelled like for the two weeks he was out there in the box…
I remember my very first flight on an older B or C model, not sure -
The crew chief said “If you see hydraulic fluid leaking back here don’t worry about it. If it stops leaking let me know right away.”
Since we’re talking about yakking on aircraft - the following happened on a C-130, but it could just as well have been in a Chinook. The smell of jet fuel still brings back some very intense memories:
