Original subtitles

(helicopter whirring)

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(upbeat music)

- [Matthew] Now I say this a lot, but how cool is this?

This is Lieutenant Zach Farrell.

This is Colonel Bill McPherson.

The amazing Gene Krans.

You've never seen aerospace like this.

(plane whooshing)

(upbeat music)

- During the Korean War,

U.S. Forces began using helicopters in warfare

to a much greater extent.

But existing helicopters lacked power

and required a lot of maintenance.

So the Army held a competition for a new design.

In 1955 Bell helicopter won the competition

by building the HU-1A Iroquois, quickly nicknamed the Huey.

Which was later re-designated as the UH-1A.

During the Vietnam War, Hueys were uniquely suited

to the challenges of fighting in the dense jungles,

mountains, seasonal flooding,

and a lack of general infrastructure in the country.

The versatile helo was flown

by the United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

As well as the Air Forces of many other countries.

Nearly 65 years after the Huey's introduction

a few crews are still flying the venerable helicopter.

But it has been widely replaced by the UH-60 Black Hawk.

Still Huey pilots have a saying,

"When the last Black Hawk goes to the boneyard,

"there will be a Huey crew there to pick them up."

Now let's check out some of the features of the UH-1 Huey

at Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum.

Now, what you didn't know is,

this is a Mike model, an M model,

which was made specifically as a gun ship.

Which means it's got a kind of interesting rotor head.

It's got a 540 rotor head,

which give the blades way more play

on the left, right, front and back.

That's because these guys carried a ton of ammunition.

And you needed to be as maneuverable as possible

because 1400 horsepower sounds like a lot,

but when your carrying rockets and machine gun ammo,

and bunch of people, that's not a lot of power.

Plus, you've got the humidity of Vietnam.

That's not good for lift either.

(upbeat music)

All right people this is the good stuff.

I am here with a real live helicopter pilot

who was in Vietnam.

And you did how many tours?

- Three. - Three tours.

This is Colonel Bill McPherson.

Thank you so much for being with us here today.

This is a huge honor because I hate to say it

but I consider you a friend of mine.

- We'll think about that one.

(both laughing)

- Okay. - All right.

- Now going back to the history of this thing,

this guy actually flew in Vietnam?

- It was built in 1967 by Bell helicopter

in Fort Worth, Texas so it went directly to Vietnam in 1967

and was issued and assigned to the 1st Battalion,

9th Air Cavalry Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Division.

Air Cavalry Division. (Matthew laughs)

- So-- - No horse just helicopters?

- That's right, that's right.

And it served for three years combat.

- Wow.

- It has 21 bullet holes to verify it's combat time.

It was used extensively as support for ground troops

who needed gun support.

It escorted troop carrying aircraft.

It escorted medical evacuation aircraft

and was extremely busy for three years

which takes a toll on the mechanics,

the turbine, the rotor systems.

So at the end of three years

it was shipped back to Bell helicopter for rebuild

in Amarillo, Texas.

And as the war was winding down

they decided not to send it back to Vietnam,

but issue it to the National Guard.

So it was issued

to the Nebraska Army National Guard in 1971.

And it was in 1996 that it was directed to fly

to White Sands to become part of this target drone program.

And as the program was canceled a few years later,

it sat there on the air field

until I was able to retrieve it.

- Well tell you what,

do you want to do a little quick walk around?

- Sure. - And we can

actually take a look at some of these places

where it was shot?

(upbeat music)

- So what I did to illustrate the bullet holes,

I put decals over the holes.

The the decals or stickers are on the patch,

the patch cover the holes.

- [Matthew] Covers the holes.

- And you'll find all over the aircraft,

there's 21 I believe, 21-22 on the aircraft right now.

- Whoa, and in this case they were going for the pilot,

'cause he sat right there. - That is correct.

That is correct, he sat right there.

And they didn't get him because the seat for the pilot

and the co-pilot are bullet-proof Kevlar.

The same thing the military helmets are made of.

- [Matthew] Right, wow.

- So he was safe.

- All right so we discussed earlier this is a Mike model.

Which means it was purpose built to be a gun ship

and well you can see it's loaded for bear.

Down here are two M60 flex mount machine guns,

that's a 7.62 millimeter machine gun.

And they are actually on a mount,

two on each side that allow them

to move left and right and up and down.

Not a lot but just enough

that you didn't have to really aim the helicopter

as much as you would if they were a fixed mount.

Now, inboard of the machine guns is something even scarier.

Seven-shot rocket pod

with 2.75 inch folding fin aerial rockets.

These guy were monsters.

They could carry a high explosive warhead,

white phosphorus or even scarier, this guy.

2200 in each rocket of the flechette,

think of it as a tiny steel arrow.

This would just denude the countryside of any vegetation,

and anybody in it.

Super scary.

But, what's this bad boy right here?

It's just a door mounted M60.

And the M60 is the same thing that this guy was.

This is in the infantry configuration.

So if these guys went down,

you could literally dismount this weapon

and use it to defend yourself from the bad guys.

So how much ammunition could these guys actually carry?

Well, for example this box

right here will carry 500 belted 7.62 rounds.

A lot of guys would carry 80 to 90 of these boxes

to feed these behemoths down here.

That's a lot of ammunition but you've got to keep in mind,

you can't just load yourself down with ammo

because you've got to keep fuel in mind.

And if you've got a long mission,

you gotta have more fuel and less ammo.

But if you've got a short mission,

you can really load up on this

and stay on station for quite a bit longer.

We are here with Lieutenant Colonel Ken Overturf.

Thank you so much for being with us sir.

I'm going to take this thing off my head. (laughing)

(groans) It's very cool though.

You flew H models, and you flew for a Project Left Bank.

- That's correct.

- And that was looking for radio signals and?

- Locating the enemy via radio interceptions.

- [Matthew] And where were you doing that?

- At that time, the 1st Cavalry Division,

the unit that I flew with,

was headquartered in Phuoc Vinh, Vietnam.

In War Zone C, right about the middle of South Vietnam.

- Okay, for our viewers and especially me,

can you take us through kind of what it's like,

some tips and tricks on how to fly the Huey?

- Let's do a brief helicopter flying 101.

- Excellent.

- There three maneuver controls on this helicopter.

We'll go through them one at a time.

- [Matthew] Okay.

- Starting with the first one is the cyclic.

The stick if you will, right between your legs,

this cyclic provides the horizontal movement

in the helicopter.

And how it does that is when the rotor head is spinning,

it's operational rpm of 6,600 revolutions per minute,

it becomes like a giant dinner plate.

And you can envision this giant dinner plate.

- [Matthew] Okay.

- Now with this cyclic, what your doing is balancing

that giant dinner plate.

Tip the cyclic forward, the dinner plate tips forward,

and the aircraft moves forward.

Next control is the collective.

This control gives your vertical movement capability.

When you're ready to go up,

pull the collective up,

and it puts pitch in the blades of that spinning plate.

Then we go to the third control,

which are the anti-torque pedals.

The torque caused by the power,

when you're putting pitch in the blades,

moves us into Newton's third law of motion.

For every action, the rotor head spinning counter clockwise,

an equal and opposite reaction,

the fuselage will tend to turn clockwise.

- [Matthew] Okay.

- So to fly this helicopter all you have

to do is balance the dinner plate,

manage your vertical and ascent, descent,

and keep the nose straight with the pedals all the time.

- Oh well that's not hard. (laughing)

Guys, thank you so much. - Pleasure.

- Colonel Bill, Colonel Ken,

it's always a pleasure to be with you.

- Certainly. - But guess what?

I'm gonna go see what has taken the place,

but will never replace the Huey.

- You got it. - And that is the Black Hawk.

In the late 1970s,

the United States Army started replacing the UH-1 Huey

with the UH-60 Black Hawk

as their new tactical transport helicopter.

Manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft,

modified versions of the Black Hawk have been developed

for the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

These have been designated the Seahawk for the Navy,

Pave Hawk for the Air Force,

and Jayhawk for the Coast Guard.

Luckily, we have some friends

at the United States Coast Guard Sector San Diego,

who are going to show us the ends and outs

of the Jayhawks in their fleet.

(upbeat music)

The origins of this station can be traced back to the 1930s

when the city of San Diego wanted

to have a Coast Guard presence

given the increasing maritime traffic.

Today, there are over 400 individuals on base,

including active duty personnel and civilians.

They also have three MH-60T Jayhawks.

Including one gorgeous yellow one.

But right now we're going to talk to Sector Response Chief

and Air Ops Officer Commander Chris Wright

about the Coast Guard

and the work being done by this station.

- So tell us a little bit about the Coast Guard.

What do you guys really do?

- So the Coast Guard is pretty unique in the fact

that we're one of the five military branches.

But we actually are not under the Department of Defense,

we're under the Department of Homeland Security.

And as one of these five military branches,

we actually execute all typical defense military missions

if needed, but we actually also transition

to 11 statutory missions.

So, things like search and rescue,

homeland security missions, pollution response--

- Oh wow. - Even ice breaking.

That all falls under the Coast Guard.

And what we like to say is,

we're sort of the protectors of mariners

who are in distress,

we also protect the homeland against threats

that are coming from the sea,

and we even protect the sea itself.

- So I referred to you as response chief.

That means that anything that happens in this area,

you're gonna be the guy to send out boats,

air assets, anything that you have here at the base,

is that correct? - Yeah.

It's a kind of unique position.

So I get to do the fun stuff,

like when we talk about the helicopter.

I get to fly that and still stay on duty.

But our three 87-foot patrol boats fall under operations

and tactical control of the sector,

and I help manage that.

As well as our small boat station,

which has four small boats that act

as tactical pursuit operations,

law enforcement, search and rescues.

- Can we go do a walk around on the helo?

- Well I would love to but I actually have to run

and deal with some response stuff.

- [Matthew] Understandable.

- But I have an awesome lieutenant

who will be able to walk you through

all the ins and outs of the helicopter.

- Does he have a mustache?

'Cause I don't want a lieutenant with a mustache.

(upbeat music)

This is the helicopter I was talking about,

this yellow guy.

I love this paint scheme.

It's not typical and we're gonna find out why.

But how cool is this?

Now somewhere around here is a pilot

that we're gonna talk to,

all we gotta do is just kind of wait around for him or--

- Hey, you must be Matthew.

- You must be the mustache.

- Yeah, that's me.

Can't have an aviation show without a mustache, am I right?

- That's very true.

Okay, he's not actually called the mustache.

Well maybe he is, I don't know.

But this is Lieutenant Zach Farrell,

and he's gonna walk us around this helicopter.

All right, LT. - Yeah.

- [Matthew] Let's talk about this paint scheme.

What gives?

- So the Coast Guard in 1916 had its first flight.

- [Matthew] Okay.

- 2016 right, here on our sweet patch,

we celebrated 100 years of Coast Guard aviation.

So earlier Coast Guard aircraft,

they flew a yellow paint scheme,

it's kind of like how the NFL will do a throw back color.

- [Matthew] Oh sweet.

- [Zach] The Coast Guard's doing the same thing.

- Very cool.

All right, so lets talk about the bird.

Where do you want to start?

- Absolutely, so let's just kind of talk

about the MH-60 as a whole. - Okay.

- So the Coast Guard actually has two helicopters.

They've got an MH-65, the Dolphin.

And the MH-60 Tango,

which is kind of the special that we're focusing on today.

- Right. - And it's the Jayhawk.

So Sikorsky initially built this aircraft

because they wanted a combat aircraft,

so it's very redundant.

It's got three hydraulic systems,

it has multiple electrical systems,

it has multiple fuel lines feeding the engines.

- Whoa. - The idea was

you did not want this helicopter

to be taken down when it's getting hit with enemy fire.

- Right. - So, very redundant.

It's designed to fly into a combat zone,

take on shots, put troops on the ground, get out.

It really gives you kinda of a nice feeling knowing

that the helicopter is so structurally sound,

when we're taking it hundreds of miles off shore

to affect whatever the mission might be.

- Let's do a walk around on this guy.

- Absolutely.

- Where do you want to start?

- So, let's start over here at the cabin door,

and then we'll just kind of make our way around.

- Yeah, I like it.

Literally right above my head, is one of the engines.

- Yes, so one of two.

One engine's capable of putting out about 1800 horsepower.

- [Matthew] Whoa.

- In the event that the pilot needed a little more,

we've got a switch that we can hit in the cockpit,

that gives us about 200 more horsepower.

It burns the engine a little bit

but it's just nice to know

that the helicopter has that capability built in,

in the event that you did need more power.

So, commonly people will ask,

"Oh is this a bomb or is this a torpedo?"

No, this is an external fuel tank.

And we've got one on this side of the helicopter,

if we were to walk around to the other side

there'd be two more.

I think these fuel tanks,

and kind of our range and our capability is one

of the things that sets the Coast Guard apart.

We're capable of putting 6000 pounds of fuel

on this helicopter.

Which gives us about six flight hours.

- Wow. - A range of about 600 miles.

Theoretically, we'd go 250 to 300 miles off shore.

We can hover for about 30 minutes, enact a rescue,

and then fly 250 to 300 miles back.

What I would say happens even more frequently,

is we'll get a report of a person overboard,

or a flare sighting, or a mayday,

and we have to go and we have to search for these people.

The other services, it's my understanding

that they use the 60 as kind of like a,

we're gonna go from A to B, we're gonna affect the mission.

They don't need as much fuel.

With the Coast Guard, any given day,

somebody could sound the mayday off their radio,

it comes to our watchstanders.

And now we find ourselves in a search

that might last us six hours, 10 hours, 12 hours.

And this helicopter has the capability to go out there,

fly that entire search pattern,

cover a large expansive area searching

for whatever individual may be in need.

And often times because we have that capability

it will end in a successful evolution

where ideally we've saved somebody's life.

- That really does set you guys apart.

That's impressive.

Since we're kind of relating this back to the Huey,

one of the big differences is the rotor system itself.

So, on the Huey it was a two-blade system.

This is a four blade system. - Yes.

- But there's another difference,

and it's in the rotor head, somehow?

- In the rotor head.

Yeah, so the Huey had, it was a teetering rotor system.

And so the rotor system would

actually kind of teeter back and forth about the mast.

And it gave that classic whop, whop, whop, whop, whop,

that you often correlate with old movies on Vietnam

or whatever it is.

- "Platoon." - "Platoon."

So, the great thing about the 60 is

it's got a rigid rotor system.

And so, basically all the components are

about one solid titanium hub

which is connected to the mast.

And there's not any play there.

So just a really solid rotor system.

The benefit to that is it takes on various G-loads

a whole lot more effectively than old Huey did.

And it's just a much more stable platform.

And then you mix that in with the stabilization systems

that we have built into this helicopter,

and this helicopter produces a very smooth ride.

- Speaking of UH-1s,

we were in the cockpit of a Huey earlier,

an actual Vietnam era Huey.

- That's awesome.

- I know that the cockpit has gotta be different

than that thing, can we go check this on out?

- Yeah, absolutely let's move up to the cockpit.

- Yeah, yeah.

This looks totally different than the Huey.

- Just a little bit.

- What's going on with all of these screens?

- So what you're probably used to seeing,

what I imagine the Huey at the museum looks like,

these probably have steam gages everywhere?

- Yep. - A bunch of switches,

probably not a lot of the electronics

that you're seeing in here.

The good folks at Coast Guard headquarters

decided to bring us into the 21st century.

(Matthew laughing)

And so what you've got in front of you is,

you have five MFDs, multi-functional displays

and they will display all of our instrumentation.

Additionally we can pull up video systems while we search.

We've got a camera underneath the helicopter

that can aide in a search.

It can pull up infrared imagery

to pick up body heat if we're looking for a survivor.

- Wow.

- So, we can actually control the camera

from this joystick here in the center.

- Oh, no kidding.

- [Zach] So, either the pilot or the co-pilot can operate,

it kind of swivels back and forth.

The flight mech in the back or the rescue swimmer

they actually have their one joystick as well.

As well as their own screen to where they can operate it

and the pilot flies. - Whoa!

- It's all about divvying out tasks

in the cockpit to make sure that you're the pilot flying,

your primary job is to fly.

I'm the pilot monitoring or the safety pilot,

my primary job is to back you up,

to run radios, to make sure that the aircraft's safe.

And then we've got a rescue swimmer,

who can be helping with the videography.

We've got the flight mech,

who can be looking outside the cabin door.

It's really like a cohesive team effort

to make sure that the mission is done as effectively

and as safely as possible.

- You fly these things.

You probably know how to like, start this bad boy up.

- Yeah, I might be able to give a peek.

Andy, we good to pull some power?

(machines whirring)

All right so-- - Oh yeah!

- As we fire it up, it's a little loud.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause there's a lot of electricity that's coming

to each of these units.

So the screen closest to you,

that's your primary flight display.

- [Matthew] Okay.

- It gives you your air speed.-

- Heading. - Your heading,

your attitude indicator, altitude.

In the center, we like to keep all of our engine instruments

so that the pilot can reference.

I'm the co-pilot, I can reference.

I can pull up a video display.

And so right now

you can see your camera guy there in the back.

- [Matthew] Oh, that's so awesome.

- So I've got him on our camera,

as he has his camera on us.

- All right we're half way there, can we go fly?

- You know what, I think we've got something lined up.

- Oh my god.

- Yeah, let's go do it. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Let's get you geared up first.

- All right even better.

- All right let's go.

(upbeat music)

- [Matthew] How cool is this?

Not only did I get to ride along with the Coast Guard,

but I got a front row seat during an actual training drill.

A standard search and rescue crew is made up

of a rescue swimmer, a flight mechanic,

a pilot and a co-pilot.

Depending on the situation,

rescue swimmers can free fall from the helicopter

or be lowered down via the rescue hook

onto a boat or directly into the water.

Swimmers deploy from helicopters for medical cases

on cruise ships, or tankers.

And they also respond to boats taking on water

or rescue people who are already in the water.

I can't say enough about the swimmers,

they're extremely well trained, focused and mentally tough.

I suppose you have to be to jump out of a moving helicopter.

It's the most widely used American military helicopter

of all time and the icon of the Vietnam war.

It's legacy continues to this day,

with the sounds of it's blades still filling the skies.

From taking a tour of the Huey

at Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum

with the men who flew it,

to riding along with the United States Coast Guard

in the MH-60 Jayhawk,

we've taken you behind the wings of the UH-1 Iroquois.

(upbeat music)

Are you gonna shake my hand or not?

- Oh, I thought about it but.

(both laughing)

- You heard it!

You heard it.

He'll never say a nice thing about me again.

Sorry.

(laughing) Okay.

Brilliant, buddy.

(Zach laughing)

You're a real, you're hired.

- [Narrator] Little learners can read, write,

talk, sing and play at Arapahoe Libraries.

Make a play date, join a story time, build a masterpiece

and present a puppet show all in one morning.

More at arapahoelibraries.org.

Do Denver's 300 days of sunshine

make the smiles a little wider?

They definitely make the

energy here stronger.

So you can enjoy the blue skies

and mountain view sunsets.

Denver. Soak it all in.