It always looked pregnant to me… not a good sign when you’re supposed to be an attack helicopter…
Interesting. Looks like it needs to go on a serious diet.
What prototype is/was it? Apache?
Looks like the Bell AH-63 to me, lost to the Apache. So Jon, enjoying the rain at Mother Rucker?
Uhm, YAH-63 only 3 built, for the fly off in competition with the Apache for the AAH contract. (Two flying prototypes, one ground test article.)
One of the airframes showed up at Nasa-Ames to be used in the construction of a new simulator. Besides being ugly, the aircraft featured a “slow turning rotor system”, multi-redundant flight controls and the gunner position in the back seat.
Where was the picture taken?
Regards,
Yep, that’s one of the YAH-63s. Photo was taken yesterday here at Fort Rucker. I had one heck of a day! I got to go through two of the museum’s storage warehouses, and man was I in awe!
The first warehouse was kinda dark, but in there was the following:
Bell YUH-61 UTTAS
Bell Model 309 KingCobra
YAH-64 74-22248 (yes, the FIRST Apache)
AH-56A (not the pre-production, this was the real deal, fully armed and operational Cheyenne)
The second warehouse was a LOT bigger. Had about 100 aircraft in it. Some really impressive aircraft, but one stood out for me. The Bell 207. The FIRST purpose-designed attack helicopter. Although it was just a testbed, many of the innovations that Bell came up with for that bird have become standard for attack helicopters…
… and I got to sit in it!
[8D]
Not home to look right now, but was that the Soiux Warrior?
Yep, the Bell 207 was the Sioux Scout…
And yeah, we had one heck of a rainstorm yesterday!
Dah, meant the Scout, blame it on old age
Jon
If you get a chance to take some photo’s in the storage hangers, please do and post them. Thanks
John,
I did take a bunch of pics. The light in the first hangar was pretty crappy, so I only got close-up shots of several aircraft, mainly the AH-56A. I’ll post what I can. The second hangar had a lot of interesting aircraft in there, but I only shot one of them, the Sioux Scout. I do plan on getting back in there and doing some serious work on the Cheyenne and King Cobra, but it looks like I’ll be starting primary this week, so it may be a while!
Hey Jon.
Some pictures of the Sioux Scout would be great!!! In all the search’s I have done online, I have found a grand total of 3!!!
I’ll take all you can get. I’m greedy. [:-,]
Randie,
Here’s another three. That’s all I took of this bird. Its kinda wedged in there between several others.
Not a problem, hope you got your longjohns, that flight line can be cold in the morning this time of year
Thanks, Jon.
Maybe you can get some interior detail shots at a later date. I’m trying to figure out exactly how to scratch one of these.
I wonder if Bell might be able to help out? Hmmmmm???
Take care and pay attention in class.
Randie,
Hmmm… I’ll see what I can do about interior shots for ya. For scratchbuilding, I’d say start with an H-13. Tailboom’s the same, the cabin’ll take some work. Lemme see what I can scrounge up.
.
Jonny … I did a bit a research on the 207 when I wrote my book … you should look it up and get some more details from there. It was built from OH-13 components and was little more than a concept demonstrator, but it’s success in wargames with the 11th Air Assault Brigade made Cobra production a shoo-in. While you’re there, see if you can find the armored OH-6, a little concept demonstrator that was too heavy to launch. Neat stuff, my friend … keep it coming.