Thursday, July 24, 2008

Blackhawk Down

Was one of my favorite movies of all time.

Tuesday night we got to train on Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting with one of these babies. Our former Assistant Chief just happens to be the Fire Chief at Camp Robinson on the civilian side and our current Assistant Chief is a firefighter there so they arranged for the Arkansas National Gaurd to fly them out to Station 1 in one of the Blackhawks to give us a run down of basic crash/rescue techniques that we needed to know about these animals.

Pretty neat stuff, but for me, if you have seen one chopper you have seen them all. It seems some of the neighbors had never seen a chopper before so it was quite the sight. Especially when they were hovering around at tree top level. The Co-Pilot just happened to be a blond female Lieutenant and for the young men thinking about joining the military, seeing her fly that chopper like she does could give you that extra motivation. The Captain actually doesn't fly the bird, the co-pilot does.

One thing I can say about my years in the fire service, there is always an interesting class you can go to for free. I was pretty jealous of our two guys that flew in with the Blackhawk, they were getting to fly out and use night vision for about an hour flight. I did ask the LT to give the guys a fun ride home......usually they will try to make the newbies puke...lol.
Here are a few pics I took with my phone.

The Blackhawk checking out the LZ


Just looking around


LZ in sight and coming down


Time for the rotor wash


On the ground



Lots of neighbors and family had to come out to see the Blackhawk



The Crew Chief wears this, to scare the enemy?



We get instructed on the Blackhawk



The Captain shows us the jet engines and where to put water and where not to





The blond LT gets ready to fly the guys out