CH-47 " Other " Missions
SAS, should I have written: " sorties "? BTW, you are entirely correct about the local license applied to that subject.
Flying in a unit ( 119th Avn Co ) that had UH-1B guns and slicks in 65-66, not only didn't we have the performance to steal anything of use, but stationed at Camp Holloway we didn't have anyone nearby who had anything worth taking anyway.
Prior to that however I was at the Army Test Board ( as a 2nd Lt out of flight school ) and our three CH-47A's were having problems with resonant, self-destructing nose gearboxes that shed pieces thereof into the T-55 immediately aft, resulting in landings at the golf course and other places that got attention. Anyway, the older heads tended to avoid getting on the CH-47 schedule, so within two months or so I was an IP, which made me available ( read as " expendable " ) for an interesting mission.( Boeing changed the operating Nr from 204 to 230 which avoided the resonance ).
They wanted to know how vulnerable the UH-1 was to the sort of ground fire expected in RVN, so a full scale wooden UH-1 was built with a double metallic foil skin in 30-40 sections, each attached to an electrical feed to a tape recorder. Proposition: sling this model at the end of a 2000 ft long cable at night and shoot live ammo at it as we flew various courses and altitudes under radar control at FT Bliss. If a bullet pierced the skins, electrical contact would be recorded for that skin section on the recorder. Good job for a 2nd Looey.
To pick up and return the model without banging it around, we had a very powerful AA WWII searchlight whose beam was aimed skyward at the vertical. So after they had run out of the prescribed amount of ammo, one would come back to a hover at 2000 plus 3-500 ft and listen to another crewmember talk us down the beam to a gentle touchdown.
Did this for about a month until we got some new gunners on the ground and the cable got parted 200 ft from the CH-47. At the time, they had increased the ground fire caliber to 40mm ( no typo ) so the test was declared over.
Always thought the CH-47A, now I'm talking about 1963-5, was easy to fly, and actually the Army and Boeing managed that program pretty well over the years.
Thanks,
John Dixson