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AH-6C, MH-6 photos from AH6C-SIP-PICS ARE BACK!


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On 12/18/2009 at 3:27 AM, rotorwash said:

Note the test boom on the skids, pink forklift, and little girl in a bathing suit

What about the guy pushing the bird in FLIP-FLOPS! I am pretty sure that I would have been given extra duty if I tried pushing one of our trucks in a pair of thongs (the name for flip-flops in my new home, Philippines)

 

Awesome pictures, this is the best thread in the history of threads.

 

Anthony

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In relation to grenade launchers, the XM-8 was tested on the OH-6A and a few may have been fitted to OH-6As in Viet Nam. It's possible the 160th might have fitted grenade launchers to their Little Birds. They also seem to have access to hand-held grenade launchers too.

 

Hughes also tested the XM175 grenade launcher fitted to a rear cabin mount in an OH-6A. I'm pretty sure this never saw service!

 

LD.

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On 6/14/2010 at 3:03 AM, thatguy96 said:

looks like there's a GAU-19/A

Good eye, had to go look a second time. Honestly, until I started modeling again, I never even heard of the GAU-19/A. I can say that as a Cavalry Scout, we would have really appreciated such a system option on our trucks. Our three choices were the M2, M240BRAVO and the Mk19. We never saw the GAU-19, but would have traded any one of our mounts for that, in a heartbeat. While I love all the ones we used, as any good soldier, more, bigger, louder, badder is always better. Maybe that isn't true, but the grass is always greener on the other side comes to mind.

 

Anthony

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On 1/15/2011 at 11:32 PM, TheHarleyMan2 said:

Here is a training video

I just tied to watch the video, says it's blocked in my country! Damn, I live in the Philippines but am an American Army veteran, hook a brother up!

 

I know, this is a very OLD post, but it's new to me, I only now started reading it from page one. Sadly, half the photos are no longer linked, and have blanks surrounding it.

 

Hope this finds, and more importantly, finds you well. Thanks for your service brother!

 

Anthony

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On 1/16/2011 at 12:05 AM, TheHarleyMan2 said:

EH-6E: 

I bet this is the bird that helped bring down Pablo Escobar. From all I have read about him, he was located with the direct help of some secret surveillance aircraft flown either by SOAR (which maybe these fine gents can comfirm/deny) or by CIA.

 

I seem to recall the bird helped triangulate his position before the running roof top shoot out that saw him dead in just a few minutes.

 

I know this is probably bad memory/intel, but it makes for a great story.

 

Anthony

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On 8/28/2012 at 10:18 AM, FM-Whip said:

The regiment itself I think would probably like to be doing other things

Now this is a complete guess on my part, and it is even harder to prove.

 

My bet, not only do they not mind doing the PR work, shows, NASCAR etc, they hopefully enjoy it! This is the rare opportunity to have the public see these warriors, who work in super secret, never getting recognized for the dangers they face over a career with little more than a plaque to hang in their garage and a list of physical injuries that are under supported by the man eating machine that is the military service. Plus, each place is a new situation to train, sometimes fast ropes are used, other times, landings in confined spaces, all good training that is absolutely required to keep up the sharp skills they must have to fly the way they do.

 

I may be wrong, but I sure hope that I am right on this one.

 

Anthony

 

PS. Yes I know this was poster years ago, but I am reading through the entire thread now, too much good intel to miss.

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4 hours ago, Stalker6recon said:

I bet this is the bird that helped bring down Pablo Escobar. 

In this case, my money is on a rather boring looking King Air.  

 

Check out the other pinned Non-SOAR thread for a pic of what an EH-6 may have (generally) looked like.   

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8 hours ago, 11bee said:

boring looking King Air.

Thanks for the tip, I will have to check it out. I was sort of dreading going back to the beginning of this thread, I knew that my ability to resist commenting on the posts from a decade ago, would be impossible. Most of those replies may fall on deaf ears, but I hope not, there is such great information regarding the LB and SOAR, you could almost write a book just from reading this thread! Hmmmmmm, makes me ponder.........nah, I would never get any readers.

 

This has definitely got to be the best V tail early LB spot on the internet. Makes me almost regret that my kits are T tail upgrades, as the original kit has the V tail included, which I am supposed to discard in order to build the J models. I wonder if any of the LB's made it to J antenna configurations while retaining the V tail?

 

I do have one extra kit I guess, and probably enough decals to make it appear like an early V tail. Won't hurt to try anyway.

 

Cheers,

 

Anthony

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16 hours ago, Loach Driver said:

saw service! 

Thanks, as always, you are extremely helpful and a truly appreciate it. I have a thread regarding the M28 turret of the AH-1, which carried the "chunker" and found out about how the system was fitted to the doors of some Huey's as well, some really great pictures over there. One of my favorites, must be a CH-47 with a dozen down firing Mk19's along the floor of the helicopter. That would have been a mini-B-52 style carpet bomber.

 

Anyway, thanks again for the great feedback. I went to the beginning of this thread and began reading yesterday, wow, I so glad I did. I am learning so much, not to mention all the great photos. I am trying to resist replying to comments over a decade old, but it's hard, they are worthy of praise and of course, open up new questions for me. I am on page 10 now, I will try to keep my replies to a minimum.

 

Anthony

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On 10/22/2012 at 2:03 AM, FM-Whip said:

AH6littlebirdinC130tn.jpg

Specific items of interest - the winter cowling, what I'm assuming is an early FLIR mount under the spotlight, and generally the lightness of the overall color - the skids are noticeably light in color, and the winter cowl and the one more visible rocket pod look like they are gray or some sort of OD green. Compare to the color of the folded back blades, for example, or the crew member boots. The other rocket pod is mostly hidden behind the man on the left.

John Hairell (tpn18@yahoo.com)

I was looking over this picture, then I realized, the guy at the front is pointing to your post and say "look guys, these crazy model makers are talking out out helicopters, can you believe it!"

 

Sorry, couldn't resist!

 

Anthony

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On 10/26/2012 at 10:55 AM, JackMurphyRGR said:

From a knuckle dragging Ranger...any thoughts on what these pictures show?

mystery1.jpg

I know this is really late, but I noticed something that is extremely intuitive by the manufacturer of this gorgeous rotary gun. Did anyone else notice the strange looking safe/efas and fire/erif on the rear of the gun? It struck me as strange for a nanosecond, then my high(ish) ASVAB score kicked in.

 

The reason for this strange symbols is so simple, even a true knuckle dragger would understand. The second set of safe/fire is based on the weapon being loaded on the other side of the airframe, so no matter which side it was mounted, it would say safe/fire in the normal, upright position.

 

The Army seemed always to be speaking to the dumbest among us, but one thing also true, any warning that you would think is obvious, like "don't stick your head into the barrel of a 155mm artillery barrel", is created because at least ONE soldier at some point, did the very stupid thing the Army was warning us about!

 

On this D-day anniversary, I would like to also thank you for your service brother!

 

Anthony

Edited by Stalker6recon
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  • 1 month later...

,

20 hours ago, Whiskey said:

Little Bird links

Thanks for the update, been busy and unable to continue my quest to read every single post in this thread, and by the way, download as many pictures as possible before I start my builds.

 

Anyway, that second link is depressing, I hope that the guys who have to fly those missions, are the ones that will be the final say in whether to upgrade or replace. After all, it's easy for someone behind a desk to decide when it's not their butt on the line.

 

Finally, it's been a while and I can't remember if I cleared this up. In a previous post, I said "least capable", it was the wrong ver age. What I meant by my post, was least complex. We all know their capabilities are legendary, which itself speaks to simplicity should be part of the goal for manufacturing, we all know that more parts and complexity equals more failure points, which then demands more redundancy, which in turn usually means more weight and deminished capabilities. A circular firing squad, getting you further and further away from the original intention.

 

On another note, I have been reading conflicting information regarding the CH-53K, as the upgrades have been failures at almost every turn. So much so, there has been consideration to drop the program and replace the helos with CH-47's. Upon further investigation, it appears that the King Stallion has survived by the skin of its teeth, but is shockingly behind schedule by a decade! My question is, how in the world can they take an airframe which has been upgraded several times with success, and muck it up so badly for so long? This sort of goes to my intended statement about the Little Bird, simplicity equals reliability/durability.

 

Thanks for the new stories, the Iron Maiden is definitely an interesting tale, but it does not confirm whether the program has ever gone operational, but I guess that should not be surprising, considering the nature of the subject.

 

Cheers,

 

Anthony

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/4/2019 at 8:04 AM, Killing Stone said:

I read Daniel Bolger's book Death Ground, yea it's close enough if you were not there, my hard bound book didn't have any sketches of the flight route in it but I know what it was anyway. I was surprised to fine some info on that mission and from SOCOM no less. "There were others" KS 

 

I was thinking about the sketch p. 174, my bad it doesn't indicate the flight route, but it shows the operating base, the target and the intermediate refuelling site.

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  • 3 months later...

Can anyone recommend somewhere to host photos so that I can post them here? It seems you can only add photos directly to a message if they are fairly small. Thanks. I might have something "interesting" to share that I discovered today.

 

LD. 

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1 hour ago, Loach Driver said:

Can anyone recommend somewhere to host photos so that I can post them here? It seems you can only add photos directly to a message if they are fairly small. Thanks. I might have something "interesting" to share that I discovered today.

 

LD. 

2 sites that come to mind are Flickr and imgur.   I use the former, free, easy to use.    Heard good things about imgur as well.   Waiting to see what you discovered!!!!

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I have yet to receive the details on the copyright owner of these photos but I'll post them up for now and update them later. The photos come from Facebook. First two photos show what I believe is one of the MH-6Bs that Task Force 158 used in the run-up to the proposed "Operation Honey Badger". I think these photos date from 1980 and were taken at the AVCRAD in Mississippi. "17168" has appeared in previous photos of the early formation of TF158 on this forum. It seems to have some kind of electronics box-shaped fairing fitted under the belly just forward of the engine doors and a small shark fin antenna fitted to the fairing. It is clearly visible in that first pic. This I believe, is the "MH-6B" configuration, or at least a "B" prior to further equipment added.

 

MH-6B 1

 

MH-6B 2

Two more photos will be posted tomorrow then the two most interesting photos will be added after that. Hopefully GT drops by and can assess what is going on in some of these photos. 

 

LD.

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Next up is a pair of photos depicting "17168" being loaded into a C-130 Hercules. This looks like it might be a loading/unloading trial to see how best to get a Little Bird into and out of a transport aircraft in double-quick time (purely a guess on my part!). The location looks to be desert-like and certainly doesn't look like anywhere near Mississippi! Can anyone identify the airfield? There is an Army L-23 or U-21 (I think it's one or the other) in the background along with a civilian fixed-wing type so it doesn't appear to be a secret or overly secure airfield unless the civvy plane is a aircraft operated by a defense "contractor". Again, nothing too ground-breaking but if these photos do depict some of the activity that occurred during the planning for "Operation Honey Badger", they are of some historical significance. The photo that will be of most interest to Little Bird fans will be posted tomorrow. 

 

MH-6B Herc1

    

MH-6B Herc2

 

LD.

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