Early OH-6/MD500 FLIR Questions
 

Folks,

I'm doing some research on a special ops MD500, circa 1988. This helo had a FLIR installed (amoungst a great deal of other interesting equip).

I was wondering if anyone has pictures of an early OH-6A / MD500 FLIR screen installation? It appears that the subject helo had a T-style instrument panel. Not many pictures out there of a FLIR display mounted with these panels.

Any information is greatly appreciated.

John

If this was an aircraft operated by the 160th/SOAR, I suspect you won't get many folks offering up such info on an open forum.

Keep in mind, this is a nearly 30 year old helo at this point. I highly doubt there are any OPSEC issues associated with the instrument panel layout of this aircraft. I'm simply curious about how the FLIR display was integrated with instrument panel. I've heard some early civil MD500's with T-panels had a FLIR added, I'd settle for pics of those helos.

Also, for whatever it's worth, it's not a 160th aircraft, it's assigned to a more photo-shy "civilian" unit, at the time it carried registration N1111U.

This one....?

https://www.planepictures.net/a/96/13/1279777214.jpg

I'm more curious about the side pod.

That's the one. The consensus is that the pods are combination fuel cells / planks for external riders. It also has provisions for fast-rope, the aforementioned FLIR some large, very non-standard antennas under the nose, radar warning receivers and a very early SATCOM antenna. Pretty unique for a "civilian" helo. Consensus seems to be that this aircraft belong to Project Seaspray (or one of it's other designations).

Anyway, if anyone has some pics of early cockpit mounted FLIR displays, I'd be most grateful. Supposedly the OH-6A (OVL) helos may have had a similar FLIR set-up so if anyone has pics of those instrument panel's, that would be useful as well.

Hi John,

there was also this, "the quiet one" a specially modified Hughes OH-6A , although it's from an even earlier period than the 1988 you mentioned.
It was used by Air America for covert night operations in SEA and therefore featured FLIR as well.

The airspacemag article itself makes for pretty interesting reading and if you go into the picture gallery in the article , you will find a picture of the cockpit as well , showing the dual FLIR screens, one on each side:

Air America's Black Helicopter | Military Aviation | Air & Space Magazine

Also the VHPA. has a nice pdf with some more details about the FLIR and night flying training for/with that specific helicopter:

http://www.vhpa.org/stories/AAblack.pdf

Hope this helps,

Kind regards,

Vee1

Thanks for the link, Vee1, I'll check with my dad and see how much of that mission he might recall. He was in the spook business in SEA during that time period.

See this video of N13SD - an ex-quiet one.
Bit of audio of it flying
Includes stills of it in original NOH6-P configuration with FLIR.
Also a walk around here.