And now for something completely different, you "Mericans" should appreciate this one. A Huey preparing to fly from North Weald UK to Shuttleworth UK to day for a display at their first airshow of the season. This was something of a treat for me as it spends most of its life in a hanger and only comes out once or twice for airshows and today I was in the right spot for once.
Lame.
Ya wanna be close to one when they are really scrambling
then wow they really honk along and send a shiver up your spine.
We're not too far from or local airbase and a couple of decades ago they were doing tactical jumps from C130's @ 20,000 feet and gliding some 15km back to the base when one of their instructors had chute malfunctions (backup too) and was lost on neighboring farmland. We saw some guys chutes that tried to stay with him and jumping on our bikes to go and see what the fuss was about and stopped on a prominent ridge when a couple of Hueys came over our heads @ warp 10 speed. Gave us quite a fright.
Anyways the poor bugger was lost and his radio beacon never went off so it took the RNZAF and army a couple of days to find him.
Meanwhile we had a full command post in the flat paddock right behind the house.......truckloads of ppls combed the countryside looking for the poor guy that had some 900 jumps behind him and left a wife and kiddies too.
Think it put me off ever wanting to do a jump.