Sorry for the lost time. I have been out of town on business for the last month! Anyway I was looking at a project near McChord/Ft.Lewis and heard the sound that I know to be a Blackhawk. I looked up and saw it was Grey with orange nose and doors only? I was going to ask one of the chiefs at the flight facility what exactly that meant. In order to save face I will just ask you guys. Whats the technical reason for having the orange markings?
Sounds like some type of Navy (grey) test bird. Hi-vis orange is used on them most of the time. Our OC Kiowa’s have orange hi-vis doors on them out here to tell them from the player birds too.
Yep, I was gonna say a test bird too. Unless they were from Rucker, then there’d be students flying em!
Aircraft dedicated to search and rescue wear bright orange. Most facilities have aircraft dedicated to SAR. However, SAR birds tend to be Orange and White. Orange and grey is probably a test aircraft like Arty said.
Semper Fi,
Chris
Maybe test aircraft, but I would say a trainer. All of the Navy test helos here at Pax River are painted in standard grays with no orange on them. However, most of the aircraft owned by the test pilot school do have orange panels on them. They are mostly white and orange, but they have a Kiowa which is green with orange. And there is a Cobra out in front of the school which is also green with orange panels. Phil
I guess that it would not be out of the question for the Pax River to have one out there for some specific purpose? Then again, I have heard that when they do that they usually try to keep it as un conspicuous as they can.
Mac
Mac-
Certainly not out of the question. We send our helos to lots of different places depending on the tests. For example, in my tech area, we regularly have helos at Fort AP Hill or out at MCAS Yuma for rockets or missile firing, since we don’t have space for that kind of thing at Pax River. I don’t know why there would be any at Ft. Lewis, but of course they don’t tell me everything!
Phil
UKPharoah … welcome back. I still have that FSM collection and some extra models waiting for you. Lemmee know when and where and I’ll drop them off. I’ll be moving out to North Fort this week for Operation Warrior Forge, so the sooner the better.
BTW … from my experience, Grey = Navy and Orange = test, target, rescue or trainer.
hey Unkown
questions about that Blackhawk you saw
what shade of grey was it? I am currently on det here at Nellis AFB and all of the Air Force 60s are painted gunship grey?
was the tail wheel closer to the tail rotor or the cabin? the only Navy model that has a tail wheel way out in the back is the new sierra.
did it have a refueling probe?
mabye someone is filming a movie or something. I remember right before my Wespac deployment on the Kitty Hawk in 1994. We had been out to sea doing carrier quals with VFA-125. We were ordered to assemble a GBU-16 1000 lbs laser guided bomb. it was a blue body, when someone asked if we were to simulate torques our crew leader said that the bomb would be flown. most of us thought that some one had gone crazy since 125 never flew ordnance while on board. Buitl it sent it to the roof it was flown and we forgot about it. later that year me and that crew leader went and saw Clear and Present Danger. There was our bomb being launched on an F/A-18 then dropped on those cartel dudes. I figure that only a few people on the boat knew that they were filming a movie.
well mabye we can figure out if that helo that pharoah spoted was Navy or Air Force
Jose
Now I could be wrong, But I do know that the SAR Det at Witdbey Island NAS used to fly 3 UH-3 Seakings that were painted white/gray with a red tail and nose. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that they’ve been replaced by MH-60S’s and might have been painted gray with a red nose and tail signifying their SAR air station SAR role. I know UH-3’s have been replaced elsewhere by the newer Seahawks.
I think Sal may have nailed it. Did it look like this?
http://www.naswi.navy.mil/ops/SAR/Photos/DSC_0002.jpg
I didn’t think we had Sierras in the SAR role yet, but it appears there are. I guess just it’s just CSAR that are part of the Block 3 Armed Helos which should be in the fleet soon.
We really need at nice 1/48th MH-60S kit. There are so many interesting configurations, including the basic Vertrep, AMCM (mine countermeasures), Armed Helo and now SAR helos.
Where do we send the doughnuts?
Phil
Sal looks to be the winner. Didn’t know the Navy was using any MH-60S’s for SAR either. Another interesting model to build.
Here is the pic.
Makes since. I had heard the Navy quietly abandoned their planned HV-22 in favor of the MH-60 for the SAR mission.
[party]
Not a big doughnut eater but thanks.
Actually it’s a little sad since the old Station SAR UH-3’s are the last H-3’s serving and it’s sad to see them go. Last ones I flew in were the “Desert Ducks” in Bahrain.
Interesting thing about the MH-60S in the photo is it seems to have an internal Aux. fuel tank, but instead of two like we have in the HH-60G (or in the 160th birds), the one in the MH-60S looks like a single, skinnier tank. SATCOM and I think I saw PLS antennas as well.
Sal-
The MH-60S has provisions for 1 or 2 internal fuel tanks. (Robertson 200 gal, I think) I thought they were the same tanks used in the Blackhawks, but maybe not. Is PLS the same thing that we call DALS (Downed Aircrew Locator System), if so then the MH-60S does have that.
As far as the SAR UH-3’s go, here at Pax River we still have ours, at least for now:
Phil
I thought I read somewhere that someone was developing smaller internal aux. tanks for H-60 helicopters. Maybe those are it?
Par429,
Yeah, we started off having two 117 robertson internal fuel tanks up against the rear cabin bulkhead, but currently most HH-60G’s use one or two 185 Gal Robertsons. For example, we use one 185, and have a unit manufactured “gear” rack (I’m sure Trigger has a photo of one that I passed to him) in place of the second 185. We did that mainly due to internal space constraints in the ole’ Pavehawk (something we never had a problem with in the good ole’ H-3…bring on the Pavehook!!). Sometimes we use two and sometimes none. Really just depends where we are, what we’re doing and how accesible a tanker is going to be where we’re doing it.
Anyway…referencing the photo posted by Gino, I may have to get another flight physical but it looks like a newer, thinner single tank up against the rear cabin bulkhead that seems to mount more flush than the current ones we use. It actually looks like it increases the cabin space too. Me likey…me likey a lot!
Oh, and yeah…we’re talkin’ on the same Freq when it comes to PLS. As a matter of fact we sometimes refer to it as PLS/DALS.
And Par429…she may look a little different than the HH-3E’s I worked out of, but that photo you posted made me smile brutha…nice to see she’s still choppin’ sky and still doin’ her thang.
HSC-85 out of NAS North Island still operates the H-3. they are scheduled to be outfitted with Sierras soon. However in the mean time they will operate either a SH-60F or one of our (HCS-5) HH-60H since we will be decommisioned later this year.
it’s still pretty cool to see those old birds flying around the island.
Jose
IYAOYAS
Hi guys,
Hope everyone’s been doing well lately. That is a 200 gallon bag in the cabin and it does free up a bit more space compared to the 185s. I don’t think Sal needs that flight physical - his calls are pretty accurate there as to what he’s seeing!
I had heard eventually the H-3s would get replaced but I’d always thought it was going to be the old Hotels and Foxtrots as the squadrons transitioned to new aircraft. Interesting…very interesting.
Take care,
Dan
Sal,
you are correct. I did some research. They did retire the sea kings and those are the new ships. I remember watching those kings landing at Lewis. Pretty cool birds.