Neat Huey pics at Gun Geek Rants.
Those two-bladed rotors make one of the most distinctive noises in machinedom, right up there with a Jake brake or the potato-potato-potato exhaust of a Hardly Dangerous. I mean, you never hear a Huey fly over and say "Huh, I wonder what that noise is?"
(Speaking of distinctive mechanical noises, look here.)
That's why I still claim that Apocalypse Now captured the feel of Vietnam more than any other movie on the subject. The pervasive slap of the rotor blades of the omni-present Hueys do that.
ReplyDeleteThat, and the ridiculous nature of the costumes, posturing and foolishness of fighting that way...
Be careful saying "jake brake" you could get sued. Like Hedley Lamarr
ReplyDeleteUp until a few months ago, our local medevac chopper was a Bell 412 - the civilian direct descendant of the Huey. The sound just gets into your heart.
ReplyDeleteThey replaced it with a Eurocopter EC-145. Calling the helicopter just isn't the same, anymore.
Your title is offensive to Italian-Americans...
ReplyDeleteI remember when the B-17 flew over and thanks to Hollywood I knew what it was before looking up.
ReplyDeleteOr ANY radial engine aircraft.
Here's a good pic of the old LifeGuard 10 helicopter (Bell 412) - and a neat story. It's landing next to a National Guard Blackhawk that was there to lift a disabled helicopter off the hospital's 15th floor rooftop pad. They've got a pic and video of the lift in progress, too.
ReplyDeleteWOW, Tamalanche!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the linky love.
Jay G., You'd prefer it went Micmicmicmicmic?
I've got a collection of Jet Ranger pics of the various variants that have shown up here as well, but these two just made me stop as I knew what it was when I heard it. We had a Lakota in here the other day and I have to say I was most underwhelmed.
The Huey sound is burned into my brain and heart having grown up as an Army brat during the 60s and 70s.
ReplyDeleteWent to the TICO War Bird air show a few years ago and heard one coming in and was instantly transported back in time...
Huey? Huey Freeman from Boondocks?
ReplyDeleteShootin' Buddy
I think they have a distinctive "shake" to go long with that distinctive sound. I have ridden a lot of miles is Huey's and they always felt like they were moments away from losing their rotor. I commented on it once to one of the pilots and he thought it was just some kind of "grunt" paranoia, that helecopters were supposed to feel like that. I pointed out that Chinooks didn't feel like that (although they have their own quirks).
ReplyDeleteThe first time I rode in a Blackhawk I couldn't believe how much more smooth they seemed to feel in flight. I'm not sure they can take the damage that a Huey could though since Hueys always felt like they had sustained some kind of damage, so what's a little more?
Almost as distinctive is the noise that a Pave Low doing nap-of-the -Earth makes.
ReplyDeleteIt's cool being an aircraft geek and having the Army and Air Force do training flights in your area.
JayG,
ReplyDelete"Your title is offensive to Italian-Americans..."
Actually, I originally typed the title without the aitches, but changed it before I hit "POST" for just that reason. :D
Having served on board a helicopter carrier, I can identify the UH1, AH1, CH47, CH53 and UH60 by sound.
ReplyDeleteThere's a good reason that one of the principal components of a Huey rotor is called a "Jesus nut".
ReplyDeleteHuey's don't fly, they beat the air into submission.
ReplyDeleteAll of my crew time was in Blackhawks, which was fine, but Hueys were funner to fly in.
Tam, thanks for the "look here". We have a B-25 coming in soon to Centennial Airport, SE of Denver. Did you notice the one with just armament where the bomberdier would normally sit?
ReplyDeleteThere's a B-17 that makes regular visits here, and a few WWII trainers on-site for rides. Then there were the overflights by a B-1. There's a noise.
Having a distinctive noise is probably a disadvantage for helicopters, unless yours are the only ones there and it doesn't matter. Same same for rifles: If the everyone else has AKs then friendlies firing ARs are going to be pretty obvious.
ReplyDeleteRadial engines are free to sound just as obvious as they like. In fact, the more obvious the better.
Jim
As to distinctive sounds emanating from airborne mechanical wonders, I was reminded again (and for nearly the last time) this morning, that nothing really compares to the sound (and feel!) of a shuttle coming in for a landing at the Cape, which is about 100 miles from my home.
ReplyDeleteNot so much of a sonic "boom" as a huge "thump"; exactly as if a giant sandbag has been dropped on your roof from a goodly distance...it does get your attention.
This was Atlantis' *final* final approach, and just two more shuttle flights (and hopefully safe landings) are planned. It's easy to criticize the role of the shuttles as the U-Hauls of the universe, but it's been an amazing run, and I will miss that unsettling but vaguely reassuring bone-jarring signal of another safe return from another world when they are done.
AT
Another cool sound--especially at startup...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nj77mJlzrc&feature=related
Reading about the restoration of Black-6 made me respect German engineering even more...
Sherm63
Since Tam is slaying all the sacred cows in one fell blog post, I may as well let loose. As we fixed-wing types always told our rotary-wing counterparts, "Helicopters fly because they're so damned ugly the earth repels them".
ReplyDeleteI call my H-D a Hound Dog, because it marks its spot and rides home in the back of my truck at times. It definitely sounds "potato-potato" with the straight pipes at idle.
Montie:
ReplyDeleteIgnore this if you already know it -
The "whup-whup-whup" sound of a Huey and the 'shake' that goes with it are the result of the tip of a Huey's very long rotor blade breaking the sound barrier as it advances in the direction of flight.
The reason the Blackhawk feels so much smoother is because they made the rotors shorter and changed the blade tip design to slow the tip speed so the advancing blade tip doesn't break the sound barrier.
BoxStockRacer
Most distinctive helo sound around here nowadays is the Coast Guard's Dolphins. The Fenstron tailrotor makes it sound like someone is doing a fly-by in a TIE fighter.
ReplyDeleteThat sound ALWAYS meant good things; hot chow, a ride home whatever. For the guys in combat it meant even better things like ammo and medevac.
ReplyDeleteMost of the USMC Hueys are now four-blade and the sound is somewhat different. 'Course the Marines are still flying the Frog (CH-46) for which the rule was (and I'm sure still is) "It's OK if the hydraulics are leaking - that means there's still fuid in the system".
Had a B-17 in our area last weekend, knew her from the sound. Took Bride to see her and got to see - and hear - her taxiing in.
The old saying was you can hear a Huey flown by a LT before you can see it.
ReplyDeleteYou'll see a Huey flown by a warrant officer before you can hear it. He'll be right on the deck.
Gerry
Anon @ 3:01 A.M.:
ReplyDeleteYou're close to being right.
I have 3,000 hours in various iterations of the UH-1.
The blade tips ARE approaching the speed of sound on the "advancing side" when the helicopter is near its top speed, but they're not quite going through Mach 1...
At Mach-1 there'd be a shock wave build in front of the rotor, and the blade going in and out of that wave as it went from the advancing to retreating side each 360 degree cycle would destroy it in short order.
But your comment about newer generations of helos having shorter blades to reduce noise and vibration is spot on!