US Marines rescue mission

[N707ZS]

US Marines rescue their helicopter... with a bigger one - BBC News

Looks like one of the guys nearly went with it!

[SASless]

Interesting way of rigging the UH-1.....certainly not the way the US Army would have done it!

[TwinHueyMan]

Sadly, that's how a lot of military recovery jobs go these days. Short line, less-than-highly-proficient crews, pressure to get it done quick, super eager ground crew... ra ra. The sling kits we got sent in the Army starting about 10 years ago had dozens and dozens of components, a manual that rivaled the size of a helicopters -10 manual, and never seemed to work right. Seems like the Marines got a kit also designed by someone with tens of thousands of hours flying a desk too. By the time I left, we were willing to do just about any repair on-site to avoid sling loading and, as a result, causing the inevitable additional substantial damage.

At least they got it out of there.

Mike

[SASless]

Had they left the Rotor Head on the thing....and used it as a lift point, used a longer Riser....and a parachute on a swivel from the tail....it would have gone a lot better.

But...as they got the job done....with no damage to the aircraft or injury to anyone....job well done!

[LRP]

Originally Posted by SASless

Had they left the Rotor Head on the thing....and used it as a lift point, used a longer Riser....and a parachute on a swivel from the tail....it would have gone a lot better.

But...as they got the job done....with no damage to the aircraft or injury to anyone....job well done!

If you look at it closely you'll see that the mast is the lift point, the two risers from the skid toes appear to be there to maintain that nose high attitude. The UH-1Y has a 4 bladed rotor so you can't just strap the blade for and aft like a semi-rigid UH/AH-1.

[SASless]

Why all the floppy straps flapping about?

[LRP]

Originally Posted by SASless

Why all the floppy straps flapping about?

Not a clue. They certainly don't seem to be doing anything.

[GreenKnight121]

Originally Posted by SASless

Had they left the Rotor Head on the thing....and used it as a lift point, used a longer Riser....and a parachute on a swivel from the tail....it would have gone a lot better.

But...as they got the job done....with no damage to the aircraft or injury to anyone....job well done!

Originally Posted by LRP

If you look at it closely you'll see that the mast is the lift point, the two risers from the skid toes appear to be there to maintain that nose high attitude. The UH-1Y has a 4 bladed rotor so you can't just strap the blade for and aft like a semi-rigid UH/AH-1.

And they did have a small control chute attached to the tail.