Hello, I wonder how many door gunners there are behind their weapons at the same time during a fly in a Chinook. 1; 2 or 3 ?
I have 1 side weapon and 1 rear weapon for the 1:35 scale CH47D from Trumpeter. Could it be a right configuration ?
There can be up to 3; tail/ramp gunner, door gunner on starboard side, and a window gunner on the port side. More common is the 2 side (door/window) gunners.
Starboard side door gunner
Port side window gunner
Window and door gunners inside cabin
Ramp gunner
Live-Resin makes sets for each of these.
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Nice pics Gino!
Thank you Gino for your answer.
I already have Live Resin M240 for rear ramp (LRE35168) and for one side (LRE35165), so I need a second kit LRE35165 for the other side to be right according your indications.
Thank you.
Actually, this is an MH-47E, the 47D did not have a glass cockpit…
And the 47D had M-60D waist and tail guns…
Most of the above shots are more than likely from an MH-47E.
The following are from the CH-47D’s I flew in Iraq in 2003
Normally the tail gunner gets to sit on the ramp. This shot is of a pilots seat “appropriated” from an Iraqi airlines Beechcraft on the ground at BIAP.
“normal” mod tail gun seat improvised. We also had one bird with a DFAC chair with the legs cut off.
Operational birds are not quite as “clean” as the shots posted. CH-47D crews tend to fly with a lot of Mic crap. Because we can. Rt waist gun, with an “appropriated” DFAC (dining facility) plastic chair.
Left Waist gun position. The gray box is a “flyaway” box. We never left home without it. It’s loaded with oil and hydraulic fluid, maint manuals and such.
My rucksack usually lived under the Lft Waist gun. And got sprinkled with gun gas residue. Made going through an airport stateside “interesting”. Not me in the shot.
Left Waist with spare guns.
Pilot flight gear and weps basic load. The two plastic covered cylinders are AT4 rockets. My gear is under the stairs.
Rt Waist M-60D, on the ground at An Najaf. Mess officer is still looking for his missing chair…
Cockpit CH-47D, me with cockpit decorations, my daughter sent me the combat chipmunk
Lft Waist M-60D gun, taken while they were fixing the fire detect system in my bird. The No. 1 engine fire light came on during the start sequence at around 05:30 AM. Got our attention…
Bryan Wilburn
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It is a CH-47F and the gunners are wearing 2ID patches.
Yes and no. It depends on timeframe and unit. In the early 2000s, most active-duty Aviation units (and ground units) swapped out M60s for M240s. Some guard/reserve units held onto their M60s a little longer.
I was in 2ID in Korea in '99 - 2000 and we swapped out M60s for M240s for our FIST-Vs at the same time as the rest of the 2ID did.
In 3ID during the invasion of Iraq in '03, we had all M240s.
I was last in Iraq in '08 - '09 with 10th MTN DIV and every Chinook and Black Hawk I flew on had M240Ds by that time.
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OK, we were a USAR unit, and had M60’s into at least 2005, that’s when I retired
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There is a sad story about the MH-47s in the March 2002 Afghanistan Battle of Takur Ghar (“Operation Anaconda”). If my memory serves me correctly…it’s been a long time since I read that article so take below with about 70% accuracy.
The MH-47s often carry 7.62mm miniguns. When Razor ## landed on the mountaintop, a well-placed one-in-a-thousand chance AK-47 bullet punctured the battery compartment of the minigun, rendering the minigun useless at its most critical time of need! Thus the MH-47 was defenseless on that side of the mountain. That was the impetus for the US Army SOFs deciding to mount M240s on their MH-47s (as required) to remove the battery required to drive the 7.62mm minigun motors. And there were some factual reports on side helicopter armor effectiveness that I won’t get into. If that minigun had worked to power/spool up to fire, the battle would have been different. So…lessons learned the hard way…in battle. Most US Army SOFs still mount miniguns as their primary armament.
Now Dillon Aero offers batteries on a Rail Interface System to attach directly to the minigun as power backup in case the primary battery is damaged or destroyed.
Interesting bit of trivia…
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i have a book about that mission ad a Christmas present “not a good day to die” hopefully i can read it some time this year.
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one thing I’ve learned in the game of mortal combat is that if it can fail; it will when you can least stand it. I always carried a small bag with a couple firing pins and a few other parts inside the butt stock of my rifle cause i saw a firing pin break once.
gary
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The Chinook is a fairly tough old bird. The Moracons had one that took and SA-9 missile. The missile impacted about halfway down the right fuselage towards the top. Blew a heck of a hole in the side of the bird. But the crew landed without issue. Possibly a “little” shaken up.
Had another case of a Ft Carson bird getting into some mountain wave. She pitched down about 60 degrees then pitched up about +2. On the way nose up the crew heard several very loud “thumps” from the cabin roof. They made a Mayday call and put the bird on the ground. When the blades stopped there was a crease in the top of the bird from the rear rotor, that just about hit the drive shaft to the forward transmission. Took Boeing a week to figure out the airframe was still good.
Bryan
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I went down in them twice. The first time I was so new in country that I really didn’t grasp the situation. It didn’t burn, but was a complete mess. The second one didn’t follow the rules of flight thru the Que Son Valley, and flew in on the deck carrying 6,000lb. of 30 caliber carbine ammo. I was just a passenger, and had never seen this crew before. I told the crew chief that it was not a good thing to fly like this and he let me know they knew what they were doing! OK! We come thru a valley, and I got out of the canvas seat to check my rifle. Not thirty seconds later we’re catching 50 cal from both sides of the valley. They are in a panic, and I said to myself “told you so!” Then at the end of the valley they had another fifty set up and shot up the front of the glass nose hitting that T shaped column in front. Busting hydraulic lines and causing the armor piercing bullets to come apart. The pilot catches several small pieces in the inside of his thigh, and goes into a full bore panic. He and the co pilot were fighting over the controls while I’m looking for a way out when he crashes it. The crew chief drops the load (a no no), but the ship keeps flying in a strait line. We were lined up to land at our base camp exactly and four or five minutes later set it down. Top and four or five SF guys are standing there armed to the teeth with a slick in orbit above us. Gotta go back out there and get that ammo! They asked the crew chief where he dumped it? He doesn’t know! I did, and we now have three slicks in orbit with another two gunships out of sight in orbit. We head out and really the ammo crates were in pretty good shape after being dumped from three hundred feet. Load the slicks one by one while the gun ships roam the valley doing a recon by fire every now and then. Then we blow up the rest. We saved about 70% of it, but after all was said and done had to walk out of there till somebody picked us up. I was not happy! They flew a crew out to make a repair on the Chinook, and they were out of there in about four hours (with a new crew). Never ever saw that original crew again!
gary
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We were fortunate in Iraq. None of the birds took hits, although there were those that tried. We stayed under 50’ and as fast as we could go. We had a bird fly through a flock of pigeons near Najof. Heck of a mess.
I was making a desert landing at a place called Dog Patch, west of Baghdad, FARP point. I touched down with the rear wheels, and just as I dumped the thrust lever, we went off an about a 8" to 10" cliff. The bird did a freefall, at around 45,000 Lb. the next morning they found a 17" crack near the No 1 engine. Ops!
But she was a tough old bird!
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one of my favorite Chinook stories was in Chu Lai Vietnam. We just leave the repair depot getting a new upper end. See a Chinook flying over the air base and two or three thousand feet carrying a 155 towed howitzer under it. It’s probably 110 degrees outside and some what humid. This guy is right over the two run ways when they let go of the howitzer! It lands barrel in the ground almost dead in front of the repair place while they are standing outside. We never stopped as everybody was going nuts, but always figured those guys had to call a time out for a shower and a change of shorts. The Chinook just kept going south!!
gary
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We had a 47D doing a dual point on an RA-5C to Cape may NJ. Really BIG load. They screwed up the rear hookup and it broke. As the nose of the Viggy came into view for the pilots, seconds away from the rotors, the Flight Engineer airmailed the load. After a couple of ups and downs it levels out and pancakes on a road just in front of a pickup.
On the way back north they flew over to impact zone, and there were about a half dozen emergency vehicles - all looking for the “crew”. They just kept on flying…
I’ve carried a few external loads, both civil and Mil, never had to airmail one…
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I heard about one headed towards the fence carrying two pallets of beer and one pallet of Coca Cola. He’s going thru the valleys and they begin to shoot from the normal three directions. The crew chief in a panic dumps the load at about two hundred feet. Not only is one CAV unit pissed off, but there was an infantry company headed into a base camp while the load impacted about a klick in front of them. Guess who got the beer and soda? These guys (both groups) had been in the bush way too long and it was finders keepers! The Battalion CO files an official protest with the Div. Commander (plain stupid). The infantry’s Regimental CO says if you want it back, then bring buckets so we can piss in them. Then there was an investigation as to who the Chinook crew was, and nobody was ever sure just who they were. I heard this story strait from my CO and First Shirt while they were laughing so hard they almost pissed their pants. That CAV unit was a good unit, and so was the infantry unit.
I had the Company’s unlimited ration card, and could literally buy more than a Chinook could carry. I always gave the crew a couple bottles of Canadian Club and rum when they carried a load for me. It always got there! Same thing for the slick crews that brought out food and other much needed things. We had a really good mess Sargent, and he always fed them. His food was better than 90% of the mess halls and folks knew it. If he ordered in four crates of chicken, we always ended up with six. He fed the infantry guys when they rolled thru as if they were part of the unit, and they knew this ahead of time. I used to trade whiskey to the Navy Sea Bees for whatever we needed, and they could get me most anything. The Chinook pilots knew as soon as they sat the load down there would be a guy with fried chicken and a quart of whiskey waiting for them. It always got there in one piece and also pretty fast.
gary
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We came back from a deployment to Petawawa Canada to support the Canadian Reserves in 1992.
Most of the folks in the unit bought the allowed 2 cases of 13% beer each. My bird was empty, so they piled them in my 47D. We had 120 cases of beer in the cargo comp.
We cleared Canadian airspace and landed at Griffis AFB for Customs. The customs guy came on board via the access hatch on the front right. He looked in the cargo compartment, registering a look of surprise, and asked how many people were on the bird. I answered 8, flight and strap hangers. He asked how many cases of beer we had.
I answered 120.
Then he just blew a fuse, shouting “YOU’RE ONLY ALLOWED TWO CASES PER PERSON - WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!”
Took me a while to get the point across that we were caring the beef for the unit. Took 45 minutes to get him to not confiscate the beer and let up go on our way to Ft Meade.
Memorable flight, as just after takeoff we lost one of the AFCS computers, and since the rest of the birds were flying at 120, I had to shut off both AFCS computer and hand fly it for the next hour and a half. Could not exceed 100Kts with only one AFCE flight computer.
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My all time favorite Chinook story, and I’m the goat:
Around the first of May in 1968 we set out on a road march headed due north on Highway One. They had the engineers out sweeping the road really early that day, and remember it was a hot one. Normally you can’t drive thru Chu Lai till about ten or ten thirty in the morning, but we’re rolling at eight in the morning. I’m in the middle of the pack, so have little concern about mines. (newbies up front!) As were rolling along I see tanks and ACAV’s parked alongside the road and they fall in with us. By the time we pass “Five Four” I can’t see the front or rear of the column. Nobody knows where we’re going, and we’re all making book on where. At one time we were headed to Hue, but they turned us around about three quarters of the way. We figured we’re finally headed up there. About time we get to the Tam Key Road tracks start to pull off to the side of the road, and the column is maybe a half mile long. We get to LZ Baldy, and the Colonel has us pull into their base (he was riding up front like a good man should be). It’s getting dark, so we logger up for the night. Next morning we eat and clear out. Now we know we’re head to all points north of DaNang. Go about a half mile and turn left onto this really bad dirt road, There’s a sign at the begining that has the 23rd Psalm painted on it. I don’t like it! Then there’s a rainbow on the side of this less than quality foot path. Four or five ACAV’s and two M48’s. About noon a chopper rolls in with hot food. Sorry bastards sent us hot C-Rats!! (I ended up with boned turkey or ham). We start moving at about five mph dodging 500lb. bomb craters. Reach the “Y” in the road, and can see Ross out there about five or six miles. I decided it was time to walk as this was nothing but ambush city. We get there at around five, and it was more C-Rats! A slick rolls in and dumps a bunch of rigging equipment, and then another does the samething. We start rigging the guns, and by seven all are rigged for the morning. Then we have nets to hold shields and spades. Top says you did a real good job (very rare). Come about nine in the morning the Chinooks start rolling in, and I’m ontop a howitzer to get it outta there. The guy is right on top of me and I have the D ring in my hands. I get close to the hook when I get hit by a bolt of electricity as big as my thumbs. Blows me off the gun, and I thought I was dead. Top is rolling around on the ground laughing (I saw nothing funny about this). He waves the Chinook off and is still laughing. I just want to punch him in the nose! He gets a gas mask and has me put it on with heavy gloves. Then tells me to just throw it on the hook. The Chinook comes back in and I do as he said without an issue. Eight or nine loads later I’m done. Then he says in the morning I want you and the others to take the trucks back home! Down that road again??? I did it without incident, but fell in with a column and that was a mistake. I’m right behind a semi truck pulling a gas tanker. We get ambushed right after dark a little north of Five Four. I could see Fat City up about a mile and a half ahead, and leaned over to tell the driver to be watching his side of the road when the tanker got hit. Tell the driver to not stop! Then say to myself that I’m gonna bust Top’s head if I ever get thru this. Logger up on Five Four for the night. Then tell the driver it was plain stupid to be on that road after dark, as the NVA control it. Nobody got hurt, and the only thing ruined was the truck and our shorts. I fly out to Lurch the next afternoon. Top thought it was funny! And was still laughing about the incident with the Chinook on Ross. I saw no humor about it
gary
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