dusty wrote:ERLover wrote:davebodner,
you want to have something in your memory's/night mares, a Chinook Helicopter with a pilot and co pilot and 45 Marines on it, it got hit by a surface to air missile, MPG, go down and in a burning mass and listen to the screams.
I did.
Maybe your memory, like mine, is getting just a little bit foggy. I never worked a Chinook but I thought the crew capacity on a standard combat equipped Chinook was 36.
Dusty, I DID work on Chinooks, but not overseas. (Unless someone considers Fort Sill OK a foreign place.)
If memory serves me, a CH47-B will hold 33 passengers, sitting on the "Boeing Hilton" red fold-down seats
along the sides. It will also hold a full-sized 1980's Chevy Blazer or 2, in between the seats.
I firmly believe, that in an extraction move, in a war footing, 45 or MORE people will fit in the well-loved
S#!+ Hook!
Crew: three (pilot, copilot, flight engineer)
Capacity:
33–55 troops or
24 litters and 3 attendants or
28,000 lb (12,700 kg) cargo
Copied from here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CH-47_Chinook
While I don't always trust Wikipedia, especially on non-factual stuff, their
aircraft info has been quite correct for me.
Ok, now it gets personal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OSO8-iu9Ks
This aircraft was one of 8 my unit had. One of the pilots, Ron Bender,
had a Mark 5 or V (Can't remember which.) I had my first Model 10, so we
were friends. he also had one of those 3 cylinder BMW bikes, which, when
put on its sidestand, had the sparkplugs slightly leaning downhill. Some of the
other pilots would dribble oil on the pavement, under the engine, just to mess
with him.
Both pilots, and the flight engineer (E6) didn't make it. Crew Chief BARELY
got home alive. Paul Patricio had burns over 60% of his body.
I can't believe I remembered those 2 names. The rest are here.
https://www.wcmessenger.com/2014/news/f ... t-tragedy/
Oh, the same day, my wife was arriving from spending a week at Brooke, trying to see
if a heart bypass would help her out. It wouldn't, and she would go into congestive heart
failure later that night. Luckily, I had a friend that was chief of cardiology at Ft Sill's
hospital, and we got her there in time. (He met me at the ER entrance.) I found out
about the crash, on CNN, in the hospital waiting room.
My wife lasted almost another year, and I was ETS in a week.
steve