2012 1:1's

The 1:1's for 2012 are starting to show up at my job, a few more yet to arrive but here are the first two from yesterday.

My favorite, a 1968 UH-1H  8)

Oh the sound of 324 RPM!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrk710lITXU&hd=1[/youtube]

A Jet Ranger lands and then heads off......

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Yd4pSq_9Q&hd=1[/youtube]

Are those helicopters privately owned?

Man...  I just love helicopters!

...Tiger

They are all private helicopters on contract for the fire season. They will hang around till September. We still have another UH1 and possibly another jet ranger to show up in Medford. Most likely you will see the Orange UH1 around GP if there are any fires. I fly RC helis with both the pilot and the mechanic for it.

I saw a show that said that some of these 1:1 helicopters get $5000 per hour for the helicopter plus pilot.  Do you think that is what the ones you posted get?

It depends on what it is. In the relm of emergency management all equipment is rated by type. The bigger something is the lower the type number. A Jet Ranger is a type 3 heli, the UH1 is a type 2 and the Erickson Aircrane S-64 is a type 1. But even within a type rating there is a range. For example a KMAX is a small type 1 while the S-64 is a BIG type 1. They get a different pay scale.

So with that every contractor submits a bid and the lowest bid is selected, generally speaking, and I am no expert, a Jet Ranger size heli is about $1,200.00 per hour. But the S-64 is about $8,000.00 - $8,500.00 per hour. But the contractor pays for his own fuel out of that, and again the S-64 uses about 6,000 - 7,000 gallons of fuel per day at $5 per gallon. And takes a full crew of 10 people on the clock 24 hours a day to keep it running. They fly it all day, and then work on it all night long.

A few minutes of video from work the other day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVEhjc945io

324 RPM showed up again today  8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIC-qOsWAWg&hd=1

Whats that orange thing on the end of the cable?  Can't they real that in before landing?

Thats insane . I had no idea the high cost involved in flying something that big. Around $60,000 a day after gas and paying the employees (and thats figuring at below minimum wage) is mind boggling. Initially that $8000hr wage seems like tons of money but after factoring in the cost of operation its like any other job I guess. You just have an awesome office in the sky  8)

That is a "Bambi Bucket"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfk8E7OSzHk

Used to dump water on fires, sometimes they can measure the weight of the filled bucket, and as seen in this video dump out the right amount to match the Wx conditions for lifting capacity per the Air Mass Density calculations.

The bucket and line are connectted to a belly hook under the helo, there are two buttons on the cyclic, pressing one button with open the bucket and let the water out, pressing another button will eject the entire unit from the bottom of the heli. If there is a flight emergency they drop everything and deal with getting on the ground alive.

Sometimes the pilot in normal operations will have a brain fart and push the wrong button, thus dropping the whole freaking thing on the ground over our heads, usually this is way up in the middle of no where on the side of a mountain. The ground crews will have to carry this thing out. The standing rule is if we have to carry a bucket 1 mile down the mountain, the pilot then owes us steak dinner with lot's of beer! Some of those buckets are as big as a mini van, unless it is a type 1 helo, then it's bigger than the living room of a house.

Thats insane . I had no idea the high cost involved in flying something that big. Around $60,000 a day after gas and paying the employees (and thats figuring at below minimum wage) is mind boggling. Initially that $8000hr wage seems like tons of money but after factoring in the cost of operation its like any other job I guess. You just have an awesome office in the sky  8)
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Rotor craft is the highest intial cost and maintenance cost of most anything out there, I don't know what a new S-64 costs to buy, but a new CH-53 at todays cost is around $27 million and will only lift 8,000 Lbs off the ground VS. the S-64 who can carry 25,000+ Lbs. It takes a lot of flight time to turn a profit off a $30-$50 million dollar capital investment.

Got to help out with the removal of a Huey engine today, it is a Lycoming T53 1,400 horsepower jet turbine. The shroud around the nozzle section had some excessive wear so it was time for an overhaul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEB5MmrIQ24

That's pretty cool.  Is that rust on the pivot arms and linkages?

Whenever I see 1:1 scale helicopters the main shafts always look disproportionate compared to our RC models.

That is grease being thrown out from the blade grips and swash plate. And yeah, the shafts always seem way too small, the tail rotor shaft looks like the shaft on my walk behind lawn mower.

All back in one piece and flying again, was very cool to be able to see all this take place, learned more about turbines in the last two days than I have known in my whole life. These things are incredibly expensive, I held individual parts in my hands that cost almost as much as my house.

I was talking to the turbine specialist about the un-manned KMAX Marine units in Afghanistan, not only did he know about them, but he is headed over there next month to do a turbine overhaul on one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bAGN7j3pC4

Very cool !

Different perspective.....

We took this yesterday when he headed to a fire in Ashland...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdozO3VuUN0&hd=1

So did you lay on the ground with your GoPro?