Hey Seahawk! CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter...comments?

[Joe Bob]

Looks like a winner!

https://www.foxnews.com/us/marine-corps-aircraft-lockheed-martin-sikorsky

[Seahawk]

I have sat in that very hangar, walked it for years.

I know all the past number of CH-53K program managers so I am a little prejudiced.

I also have just over 100 hours in the CH-53E...all when I was the lead government pilot there.

It is, as I have written, like flying your house from your bathroom, looking out the window. The 53E was a beast. This thing is more better.

I will tell you this: I would jump in the K tomorrow and rage around Connecticut looking for the ****. Conversely, I would never fly in the V-22.

[Hard-Deck]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Conversely, I would never fly in the V-22.

^^^ Agreed. I’ve jumped everything, except V-22. No thanks!

Big-E pilots always had bragging rights of having the strongest Left-biceps; ha! Pull on that collective and curl big equipment.

[Joe Bob]

Why did they keep the traditionally tail rotor? I would have thought a jet exhaust or a covered rotor like the French use would be more survival able from rpg or small arms fire.

[Rikao4]

jump out..
forget that..
I'm more of a hoist guy myself...

Rika

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

It is, as I have written, like flying your house from your bathroom, looking out the window.

I'm thinking supplementary screens and/or virtual cockpits will be the next thing:
An array of cameras mounted on the exterior to be able to see in all directions plus up/down.
That would be helpful for landing a beast.

Cameras can fit anywhere there is space and can use NV, IFF, horizon and radar, proximity alarms, command guidance (i.e.look at something to mark it and say the keyword which is relayed to other friendly assets), and especially filtering software for bright lights lasers and flashes which would normally blind direct eyeballs.

[Tobra]

I saw a small group of V-22's flying over last week.

Bastard child of a C-2 and a helo. Should have smothered that thing in the crib and kept the C-2

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Joe Bob

Why did they keep the traditionally tail rotor? I would have thought a jet exhaust or a covered rotor like the French use would be more survival able from rpg or small arms fire.

I am guessing (I could call my old Buds and ask, but what is the fun in that?) there are a few reasons:

- The "covered tail rotor" (and I am not poking fun, apt description) is called a Fenestron and would have to be huge, bigley huge, on the K. It would probably impact the shipboard issues below.

- Commonality, manufacturing processes, logistics and training. The K and the E probably share a ton of stuff that made it more affordable than a completely clean sheet design.

- Shipboard.

Everything onboard ships folds as best possible, even something as large as the E and K...tail, rotors, as much as practicable and they fold them almost everyday. Here are some E pics:



The bars in the below pic are called blade fold crutches.



I have posted this pic before, but I was the co-pilot with a very good friend of mine, a USMC Major at the time, delivering factory fresh E's to the Marines in Tustin, circa 1996...CT to CA in 2 1/2 days.

We stayed with his parents in Parker, CO for the night and then headed out through the Rockies the next day, an incredible flight.

I had to pee so we landed on top of a small mesa and I snapped this pic BEFORE I turned my back. It is a testament to Joe, the aircraft commander, that I am still not stranded on the mesa

[oldE]

Originally Posted by Snapper33

^^^ Agreed. I’ve jumped everything, except V-22. No thanks!

Big-E pilots always had bragging rights of having the strongest Left-biceps; ha! Pull on that collective and curl big equipment.

So they're saying helicopter pilots have strong left arms to help them get it up?

Uh huh
Les

[Hard-Deck]

Originally Posted by oldE

So they're saying helicopter pilots have strong left arms to help them get it up?

Uh huh
Les

Ha! That’s pretty much how we usually responded in the O’Club on Friday nights.

[Rusty Heap]

Just curious, why the V-22 hate?

[oldE]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Just curious, why the V-22 hate?

The accident rate early into the program was not good.with more than 3 dozen fatalities in a fairly large number of crashes considering the number of aircraft in service.

Best
Les

[Tobra]

I wish the military was not so in love with the GM platform sharing business model. When they do purpose built, you get an SR71 or an A10. Are there any B52 pilots that were born when their ride went down the assembly line? Are they worried they won't have enough parking or something?

They really can origami those big aircraft so they pack pretty well.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Just curious, why the V-22 hate?

No hate at all. There are just some characteristics of the aircraft design that have been and continue to be problematic based on it's size.

There/was is a lot of really hard material, design and manufacturing choices that had to be made when this aircraft was designed in the early 80's. Hydraulics, for instance.

I knew one of the XV-15 test pilots well. The XV-15 was a much smaller prototype that was sized right. John mentioned that the larger V-22 was going to be, "harder"...it was, decades worth of chasing problems.

That coupled with the fact that their, Bells, Amarillo facility had serious issues with assembly and manufacture of thick composites and the dye was cast.. Their scrape rate was horrendous.

As a Commander I worked in PMA-274, the Cobra/Huey program office, getting the new Yankee and Zulu helo's into what is called LRIP, or Low Rate Initial Production. The Bell managers were idiots.

I have written here before that the Bell folks were the nicest people in the world but could not deliver pizza on time to a frat house next door to their facility. Idiots.

Sikorsky, on the other hand (I spent three years at the factory) were like the Sopranos; goons with a certain talent and they delivered.

[Hard-Deck]

Originally Posted by Rusty Heap

Just curious, why the V-22 hate?

I actually do have a personal hate for the aircraft. When I was an FA-18 pilot, one of my friends “Boot“ Brow became a V-22 test pilot. In the early days of the testing program which involved actual passengers, on approach, the aircraft got into a vortex ring state, and he spun that so-called aircraft into a grinding fireball on the tarmac in Marana, AZ. It killed the entire crew, and 15 Marines who were onboard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Marana_V-22_crash

Years later, in Iraq, I saw a section of V-22 doing a combat off boarding in the desert, and the sandstorm caused by the rotor downwash put those warriors in a zero-visibility state on the ground, for an eternity after aircraft departure.

A cool design for a Marvel movie, but not my go-to for combat application. I’ll take the Chinook, thank-you.

[Hard-Deck]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

As a Commander I worked in PMA-274, the Cobra/Huey program office, getting the new Yankee and Zulu helo's into what is called LRIP, or Low Rate Initial Production.

When I transferred from the USMC to ARSOF in 2000, I worried that USMC aviation was Tango-Uniform. Harriers were not flying, there were more Hornets parked at Davis-Monthan than in the fleet, the Corps was still flying Vietnam-Era C-130s, Sea Knights, Hueys and Cobras. It seemed bleak. Thank you, Paul, for fleeting-up new programs that actually worked, to include RPA. Ooh-rah and Hooah from me to you.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Snapper33

Thank you...

No need...it was a lot of fun. I am still very close to two of the Marines working in the program office when I was. One of them, a former developmental test pilot, was the lead engineer and is f'ing brilliant. He ended up living on the farm here with his wife and horses for two years.

The PMA at the time was a great guy as well but they needed "Squidly" (That was me: how original, right?) to get it into LRIP. I had a lot of experience in that area.

Again, it was a lot of fun. I took a lot of what I learned from the Colonel and instituted those lessons when I got my own PMA.

[Jeff Alton]

Seahawk,

Similar airframe to the Seaking?

Cheers

[Captain Ahab Jr]

I have a hate for helicopters in general,

1st ride was the most exciting, was winched on board from off the side of a Swiss mountain, after we'd landed safely but completely deafened, an angry mountain rescue man shouted at my friend and I, while they shoved a very expensive bill across the table at us, then followed weeks of fear I'd be deported out of the country while I was forced to hide out working in a Club Med kids club

2nd ride was a much more pleasant experience, service was very polite, boarding much more civilised, no one shouted at me after landing in Monaco which was every bit as cool as it sounds

3rd ride was more scary than my 2nd flight but nowhere near as frightening as my 1st, as the sea was too rough for our booked boat arrival to our honeymoon hotel in the Maldives they put us on an old Russian helicopter, a few times through the flight while sat right behind the pilot watching him keep an old relic in the air I wished I was being sick over the side of a boat

[Seahawk]

[QUOTE=Jeff Alton;11474680]Similar airframe to the Seaking?/QUOTE]

The Sea King, H-3, is tiny compared to the 53K.

During the PG Dust-up I flew out of Manama with the Desert Ducks when I was in port. By then the H-3 was old and tired. This is "Stealth Duck":



H-3 Overview:



53K Overview: (88,000 lb gross take-off weight with external load!!!)