UH-60 over UH-1

brien23

brien23

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Brien
The old UH-1 fixed by HS grads with duct tamp and wrench worked well for years. The UH-60 does not work so well with old school work. It's not only that the Navy FA-18G is worked on by a lot of civilian workers, the days of some airman making a mistake and costing millions of dollars of expense on modern aircraft are gone. It's also on all modern civilian planes small mistakes of the past cost little to fix, now some small mistakes cost millions, and cost lives in the learning process. It's too late to go backward and i am not saying that, just that time's have changed. The old saying "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW" is probably more relevant now than ever.
 
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I suppose, but the UH 60 has been a thing for the last forty years.
 
Majority of the work done on Black Hawks is still by high school grads (crew chiefs). Civilians compliment them for major phase inspections but that’s about it.

And while the Huey has simplicity over the Black Hawk, the systems on the Black Hawk are incredibly reliable. Our fully mission capable rate in Afghanistan was 93 %. In 875 hrs there I can only recall maybe a half a dozen times having to “jump” to another aircraft.
 
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I have about 600hrs in UH-1hs between flight school and as additional airframe back in the days of H series operational tables for Army Attack Units...also responsible for limited test flights as well. Simple yes...easy to fly also...but no comparison to a UH-60 in safety and reliability and the ability to survive the modern battlefield. The good old days were not always that good...two engines and redundancy is a wonderful thing...never rated but have a couple of fam flights in the front, but 100's of hours in the back ether as a Pax or behind a command console.
 
I've spent a little time riding in the back of Hueys, and a lot of time riding in the back of Hawks. The get-up-and-get-the-hell-outa-hereness of the Blackhawk is hands down superior to the Huey.
 
Now that my mother is dead I can admit I flew a Huey...or at least that's how we in the Attack community thought...Blackhawk was different...UH1 only guys post 1985 or so were subject to ridicule at any time...
 
Sac Arrow said:
I've spent a little time riding in the back of Hueys, and a lot of time riding in the back of Hawks. The get-up-and-get-the-hell-outa-hereness of the Blackhawk is hands down superior to the Huey.
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Agreed. But there's nothing like flying at tree top level facing out towards the doors in a Huey...and Huey's sound amazing...
Blackhawks were a tremendous leap that gets better every release.
 
brien23 said:
The old UH-1 fixed by HS grads with duct tamp and wrench worked well for years. The UH-60 does not work so well with old school work.
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When I started working on helicopters in the GOM I was taught by the UH-1 grads and then subsequently taught the civilian side to the UH-60 grads. Definitely, a huge difference between the groups. But one thing I noticed was that lack of "old school knowledge" made a difference even on the newer aircraft as not everything can be fixed by a computer. And sometimes the computer wasn't exactly right on what was wrong. In my experience, it's this disconnect between new and old school skills that can cause the mistakes which cost so much.
 
Not sure what an "FA-18G" is....but most work, as has been said, is still done by junior sailors supervised by mid level sailors, supervised by CPO's. They have a computer to reference IETMS (their mx manual) on the job, but its still turning wrenches and getting greasy. Really technical stuff, i.e. a wing replacement on cruise or something, is still handled by contractors, but I'm pretty sure that is how it has been for at least 35 years now.......

but I do remember, not too long ago, a squadron that will remain un-named had a motivated sailor sand off the horizontal stabs (or maybe the vert stabs, can't remember) in prep for a respray. Unfortunately, they thought they would get to bare metal. There is no bare metal on composite surfaces. Oops. I don't know if it was a "multimillion dollar mistake", but it was at least close
 
belbert said:
Agreed. But there's nothing like flying at tree top level facing out towards the doors in a Huey...and Huey's sound amazing...
Blackhawks were a tremendous leap that gets better every release.
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I had the pleasure of sitting door gunner with my pig over the jungle in Panama during JOTC...that was a fun couple rides. It didn’t quite make up for hauling that ***** up and down those mountains for a couple weeks but it was close.

Hawks were more reliable and could haul more but the Huey has more soul.

Both of them beat those effing egg beaters by a mile. The best part of a ch47 ride was jumping out the back before that ***** “came from together”
 
Warlock said:
Now that my mother is dead I can admit I flew a Huey...or at least that's how we in the Attack community thought...Blackhawk was different...UH1 only guys post 1985 or so were subject to ridicule at any time...
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Probably depends on the service. Marines are still flying H1s today. I never heard any USMC H1 pilots complain about being ridiculed.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Probably depends on the service. Marines are still flying H1s today. I never heard any USMC H1 pilots complain about being ridiculed.
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The 1985 era UH-1 that he’s referring to isn’t even close to what the Marines operate today. Two completely different airframes with over 50 years difference in technology. The Marine’s Venom is pretty much on par with a Black Hawk.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Probably depends on the service. Marines are still flying H1s today. I never heard any USMC H1 pilots complain about being ridiculed.
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No comparison and really not the same aircraft to anything ever in the Army inventory...calling the U1 the super Huey was probably the not the smartest either just like the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior has almost nothing in common with an OH-58 A/C other than part of the name...I enjoyed several stints flying Army Aircraft off LHA’s and a UH-1H would never meet the criteria for ship operations for example.
 
Warlock said:
Now that my mother is dead I can admit I flew a Huey...or at least that's how we in the Attack community thought...Blackhawk was different...UH1 only guys post 1985 or so were subject to ridicule at any time...
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This was some years ago. Home bound to Ahn Khe, crossing the Ahn Khe pass in real sketchy weather, got a radio call: Voice hi pitched, "Dustoff, mind if we follow you home?" I looked off to the left and spotted a pair of Cobras. Replied "Fine with me. Going right past your house at the "Golf Course" & towards Hong Kong Mountain. Doing a hundred." They tucked in tight to my H model and did a straight in to their home drome when we passed it. They said Thanks and complained some more about the weather.
 
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Hueys and Phrogs here. Never got to the Hawks. But, there's a lot to be said for the simple brute force elegance of a 2-bladed main rotor system beating the air into submission!

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They are all slingloads.. (Yes, I've carried both.)

EDIT: I have plenty of actual instrument time in a Huey and have done zero-zero takeoffs many times and I'm still alive, so they were pretty good flying with barely any instruments and no automatic stability stuff of any kind.

I never could do decent cross slopes in them, though...
 
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Pretty good NOE at 6:00.

 
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