A story from Afghanistan

[orca8589]

I spent four years in the navy, on a carrier, back in the late 80's. At the beginning and end of our long cruises, and shorter ones too, we loaded or offloaded stores, back and forth between ourselves and another carrier or supply ship; a lot of this was done by the big twin rotor helicopters officially known as 'Chinooks'. We called them 'nookies'. Depending on weather, and where we were in the world at the time, these helos could create some very interesting air turbulence around themselves. I never was able to get any good pics of any of it. For all the odd air patterns around the helo, an aircrewman I knew told me that the ride was pretty stable for a helo like that.

So, I found this story on Military.com, and while I never saw the particular effect illustrated in the story, it was similar to some things I did see with these helos - faintly glowing ice particles, rainbow halos, etc.

Okay . . . enough reminiscing. here's the deal: the main point of the story is about a U.S. soldier named Benjamin Kopp, who died in Afghanistan. He had put in three tours. The story is also about a British soldier too; we may lament the condition of citizens' rights over there in the UK, but their guys serve hard, like ours. My hat's off to them as well.

Here's the linky. Thank a soldier when you have a chance.
http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,198227,00.html

thx - cpr

 

[A.W.U.K.]

Thank you for that link

 

[mete]

A salute to those troops !
There is a great photo of a Chinook picking up civilians from a roof top just with one set of wheels touching the roof .Anyone have the photo ?

 

[Cougar Allen]

The Story

 

[orca8589]

There's also a pic just like the one Cougar posted, of a '47 doing the same thing in Viet Nam, on a steep hillside. I have it somewhere; if I can find it I'll post it.

thx - cpr

 

[65535]

Some amazing stuff happens in the wars. Skills really shine.

Good story and very cool halos.

 

[jabberwockg]

Thanks for the link, its a great story and very moving. I flew large helicopters which produced a lot of downwash and hence a lot of dust and sand got blown around when landing. Like most other helicopters, they had stainless steel leading edges on the blades and when landing at night we would see the same effect caused by the dust and sand sparkling off the rotors, quite spectacular at times. Obviously the slow exposure of the camera heightens the effect and I loved his photos. Great idea for naming the phenomenon.:thumbup: