Desert Dingo-Nice pic! Brings back a great memory.
Flight school graduation at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, 1984. Hanchey AAF if I remember correctly. Family and friends were allowed on the flightline to look at our aircraft in the morning. Afterwards, we would do the graduation "mass-formation-flyby" and ceremony at the parade field on post.
I was scheduled to fly into the parade field for the ceremony, so we were departing much sooner than the other graduates doing the formation-fly-by.
As I pulled up to a hover in the UH-1H to exit parking, the very HAWT wife of a buddy (fellow newbie W01) walked around the nose of an adjacent aircraft wearing a billowy sun dress. And UP it went over her head for the "ultimate show". My instructor said "WOW! and we laughed the rest of the day...... mainly because my buddy was standing close-by when it happened, caught us staring
(during the prolonged hover check) and gave us a serious glare
.
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Korea, winter, 1986 flying MedEvac in UH-60A Blackhawks. Had an evac mission on a very cold weekend morning immediately after a snowstorm.
Finished the mission and returned to the base (Cp Humphreys) around 0800. Did some practice snow landings, then ground taxied to the hot refuel pads. As we were taking fuel we noticed that a bunch of soldiers had started to clear the snow off the adjacent pads/walkways. Had my crew chief advise the person in charge to hold off on their snow clearing ops until we were done with refuel and had cleared the pad.
Tower gave us clearance for hover ops as we were the only aircraft operating on the airfield. Performed helicopter snow-blower ops for about 20 minutes, topped off with fuel, went to our pads and shut down.
A bit later, an LT and a couple of NCO's showed up at our hooch to thank us for clearing the pads/walkways. They got us stinkin drunk in the 'ville the following weekend and thereafter when they saw us.
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Mid 1990's, flying H-60L Blackhawks in Panama late, late one afternoon. We were part of a multi-national training exercise for peace-keeping/nation building. The "villages" in the jungle vicinity Ft. Sherman were comprised of US military roleplayers that needed to be "won-over".
Team leader
to me: "Chief, I need to go to Pina Village."
Me: "Roger, I'll put you on the road 150m up from the village."
Tm Ldr
: "No, put me on the LZ on the edge of the jungle right next to the compound."
Me: "Are they expecting us?. Do they have their gear and the porta-potties (porta-loo's?) secured down?"
Tm Ldr
: Yeah, roger, no worries-they know we're coming and ready for us. They were told to secure the porta-potties, too.
Me: "Roger, we'll be there in a few minutes."
We get there, do a high/low recon. No wave-offs from the "villagers". Before landing check complete. On short, short final with the 4 porta-potties at 3 o'clock and 40m, my crewchief says "They're rocking and....there they go!"
1,2,3,4 like ducks in a row and out of one stumbles a figure that is completely blue and covered with soggy TP.
Laughing as we touched down.......
Tm Ldr
: "Oh well, I thought they were secured. Pick me up in 20 minutes."
Me: "Roger, 20 minutes-we'll pick you and your team up on the road 150m away."
The roll-players were not happy and evidently, we blew some of their "mermite cans" (food) over as well. We (flight crew only) came back later that night and delivered pizza, BK burgers-n-fries and cold beverages.
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Late 90's, H-60L Blackhawks, doing practice approaches/landings to skyscraper helipads in a South American capitol city. Whilst on short final to the top of a large bank, we noticed a bunch of women in bank uniforms (white blouses/short blue skirts) watching us on a closeby stairway. Let's just say the views were most excellent!
Good times!