RAF Chinook

[Mackrick]

A few to keep Naddy happy.....

[Tom.com]

nice

[Mackrick]

Not really the wings go round and I don't like flying in them.

[Tom.com]

yes but that is just you

[Mackrick]

No this is me...

[Tom.com]

yh it is

[Saracenman]

nice

WRONG!

[Tom.com]

nice

WRONG!

WRONG!

[Gully]

I don't "get" helicopters. Okay, from a technical and engineering perspective they're great, but they just don't stir the soul...

Maybe it's growing up by a Naval air station with helicopters around all the time - I just don't notice them!

Gully

[Saracenman]

i don't dislike them as such - i just find it difficult to see anything elegant about them

sm

[Xplumberlives]

i don't dislike them as such - i just find it difficult to see anything elegant about them

sm

Sir you are a CAD and a BOUNDER!

I don't dislike you and just find it difficult to find ANYTHING elegant about YOU!

[Saracenman]

[Pujgnie]

How can anyone NOT love the Chinook ? - Brilliant displays at airshows :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laYw9YFRZa8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCukEYRY2ME&NR=1

Love the fast handbrake turns and the Wokka sound

[Saracenman]

they are impressive but ugly, ungainly and lack anything that could ever be classed as elegant!

a bit like me

[Dan4th]

I don't know concerning "ungainly", SM.....

I've seen them do some very impressive
bits of precise, coordinated flying -- the
exact opposite of ungainly!

I'd also like to say if you were in the Army
and off in some Hell Hole somewhere on
detachment for a few weeks, that Chinook
might be one of the most BEE-YOO-TEE-FUL
things you'd ever seen!

Hell, SM, you might even KISS the thing!!!!

Dan4th

[Saracenman]

yeah agree with all of that - the ungainly reference D4th was in the sense that Daddy Long Legs is ungainly!

sm

[Mayfly]

I love 'em - I love all heloplictors

[Xplumberlives]

Happiness is a BIG CHOPPER!

[Saracenman]

I love 'em - I love all heloplictors

[Xplumberlives]

I love 'em - I love all heloplictors

is that a new sort of dinosaur?

[Gully]

[Spitfire]

I was like SM - not much to like about them - pretty ungainly things - they don't fly they just beat the air into submission - then 2 things changed my mind....

1) I was an organiser at a charity do for Save The Children fund and I got the local helicopter base at RNAS Culdrose to send an SAR chopper (Sea King) to do a display - On the day I was asked by the pilot (via a radio link with coastguard on the ground) if I'd be the guinea pig for a winch demo - 'oh alright then - if I must' I said with all the humility I could muster
I was directed to the middle of the field and the chopper ran in - it hovered above me and I was amazed at the strength of the downdraft - the winchman was let down and he had already told me not to come to him as he would come to me ... sure enough through hand signals he got to within 6 inches of me I was fitted into the strop and up we went ....they sat me on the door edge and I was struck by just how stable the platform was - the pilot edged us round to face the crowd so I could wave - then a strop was fitted over me and the winchman shouted in my ear ' don't lift your arms' and with an unceremonious shove I was sent down on my own
What struck me very strongly was just how very well these pilots can control 11 tons of metal balanced on a 12 ton column of air - the precision was quite amazing for such a large craft and I gained a huge respect for helicopters from the experience.

2) Then I built my first model chopper - I really began to understand the amazing engineering of the Bell Hiller swash head and how a chopper is controlled - balancing a ball bearing on a knife bladed whilst riding a bike
I finally cracked hovering in the garden but its a real art of concentration - flying fixed wing you can pretty much trim it so you can fly hands off - but choppers at my end of the cost spectrum need constant control - you learn about ground effect - translational lift - its a real mind game. But when you can hover pretty much still its a real buzz.

So I feel a bit different about them now than I did originally - they are ungainly to look at - and not very inspiring designs - but man what they can do is astounding

[Dan4th]

Ohhhhh SPIT-FI-errrrrrrrr..............

Is there a VID and if so, how much??????

Taking bids???????

Danf.

Oh, and the BEAUTY of the Chinook lies in
what it can DO, not in how it looks.....

[Spitfire]

Ohhhhh SPIT-FI-errrrrrrrr..............
Is there a VID and if so, how much??????

Unfortunately not - it was in a time when no one could afford the new fangled video cameras as they were very expensive - and of course we didn't have mobile phones with bells and whistles etc etc

I think there is one very out of focus photo (taken by SWMBO on my SLR!) which, as usual when taking photos of anything flying from a distance, and without a telephoto lense, shows a Sea King hovering way off in the distance with a small dot underneath it

[Saracenman]

i don't ignore the capabilities of choppers at all - in fact i find them astonishing!

having been lucky enough to 'fly' the Culdrose Merlin sim, i know what incredible machines they are. i just find them unsightly!

if the old adage of "if it looks right, it'll fly right!" is anything to go by - choppers look like gravity-defying breeze-blocks!

it's like saying that a Pyrex jug is just as 'nice' as a Ming vase - sure, the Pyrex does a Fabe job, but would it look right placed proudly upon Chippendale, in a stately home?

sm