Scott,
The Lot 7 and later AH-64Ds have the new blade fold system. I’m not sure if they will be retrofitted to older birds (I hope so!) but it’d make sense to do so. Apparently the first birds to get them were the 1/227th’s D models before they deployed for OIF3. From what I hear, they cut down offload to first flight time from hours to a mere 20 minutes!
(gee, I hope we get em before I deploy in 08!)
I sure would like to do a commemorative print for some of you guys in the sandbox. I have some pictures hanging in the Pentagon. Still waitin’ for some connections …
Anyone?
MTB70,
Sorry, right after I got your email I went home on leave. I’ll need a bit to get snapped in and then I’ll see what we can come up with.
You da man! Standing by …
I’ll try this again - As mentioned by Cobra Historian, yes they do have foldable blade, but no, there is no appreciable difference in the way the main rotor head appears. They have blade pins that are very slightly modified (nothing you could see when they are installed) and then they fold onto blade racks that tie on the tail boom. In 2003 there were a grand total of 24 of these kits in the Army (gratis of Uncle Cody…aka the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army who is also a 64 driver). I know he was pushing to get more of them, but it is not like they are fielded to all units, nor is the plan ever that they will be. It doesn’t really make them feasible for shipborne operations either, because it still takes a crew a long time to get them hung back…however, they don’t have to track and balance the blades anymore because they haven’t been hung, and they were working a note so that all you had to do was a run up, not even a maintenance test flight. I believe that is approved right now. Not that any of that will help you tons if you have to pull wings or stabilators to get the load in a C5 or something, because you will still have the maint test flight requirement, just not the track and balance. Not to mention that frequently you have to pull one or two of the tail rotor blades to get an aircraft to fit somewhere you have it loaded. We dense packed three RO-ROs (ships, The Bob Hope, the Shughart and one other I don’t remember) with our aircraft when we went to Iraq in 2003 and we still blew all that stuff off because we were going to war and we did have the time or place to do all the MTFs, so really, it would save a bit of time in peace time only.
Anyhow, more of an answer than you probably wanted. If there is anything else, let me know.
RIH
I changed the topic title to prevent any chance of the “issue” we had previously.
POLITICS! Sorry … didn’t mean to swear …
Wow!!! Just have opened this thread a few minutes ago. Quite a ride!! As a civilian who’s neither flown nor flown in any military chopper, what I will say is I really admire all you guys who do/have done so for a living. And that goes for all the other military guys on this forum. From a very appreciative civilian; THANK YOU. Now, as far as building models goes, anybody who wants to build a helo model couldn’t ask for a better reference source. The wealth of first-hand info for helos going back 30 or more years is amazing. Now, about the Cobra/Apache thing; I have built an Apache, there are pics of it in my thread on page two, I have a 1/48 Whiskey Cobra with a detail kit. So, what I’ll do is build it, then I’ll set them both face to face and just let them growl at each other.
WOW guys i have never and i mean NEVER seen so many acronyms in 1 place LOL. but this thread has some great info and ideas to throw around as for my[2c] i’m glad our military has bolth the apache and the cobra. the snake is lean and mean & and the apache is a big scarey beast and if i remember right didn’t iraqui soldiers SURRENDER just seeing US attack helos bolth cobras and apaches???
so to all whirleybird warriors out there keep being DEATH FROM ABOVE[8-]
I for one dont mind hearing from those who have actual hands on experience with the aircraft , it ads to the interest of the discusion for me .[2c]
CFR