Last Flight of the Skycrane (part one)

Part one of the documentary featuring Norm Nielson and the Last flight of the Army's Skycrane helicopter

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Helicopter
• Army
• Chopper
• Military
• Skycrane

[USMC0316]

awsome video

[MarkoneHD]

Thank you very much, I was great to film it and I had a good time flying in it, a Huhey, and a Blackhawk.

[problematic22]

Where do I find the rest of this video? I served as an avionics tech working on Skycranes, at Long Binh in '69 & 70. They were awe inspiring to work around and fly on.

[MarkoneHD]

Part 2 is located at the Youtube Channel MarkoneHD, hope you enjoy, this was one of my favorite productions, I got to fly in a Skycrane, Blackhawk, Chinook and a Huey.. The pilots and crews were great people.

[jeryl1968]

so if it works ? why get rid of it ? i meen they still use the sky crane in everyday use out of the service so why not keep it in service ? if its not broke dont fix it ? good video

[transdrole]

Is that Darth Vader breathing in the background?

[Stover36]

Another aircraft to miss. I wonder why they retired this one. Nothing could do her job!

At least they could have found a nice replacement.

[JackFlemingFan]

Excellent!!  This sure is one amazing impressive helicopter!!

[uhmarikun]

I was never fortunate enough to be able to crew one of these but had the honor of taking possesion of one in retirement after its last flight while working at the Army Aviation Museum 91-92 Fort Rucker Alabama.

[ibejoe49]

Erickson Sky Crane has mastered the helicopter in the civilian sector and all other companies have copied,tryed, or operate sky cranes. Most have failed like the company I used to work for.Other companies try to compete using the crane but only Erickson has perfected it. I dont work for them and never had or will. I got smart and work for a major airline. But if you need heavy lifting Erickson or Columbia helicopters is a company to call.

[ibejoe49]

I worked on the sky crane for about a year in the logging industry. The company I worked for was bringing there first ch-54a on line and worked to get it ready for logging and worked on maintaining it out in the field. It was NOT easy to work on by no means. Was a maintence pig but at the same time very neat helicopter.

[srofficial06]

As the drive shafts for the stabilizing rotors wil be removed perhaps generators with drive wheels with gears cut to accomodate the gearface (if there is one ) that formerly drove the stabilizer rotor driveshaft such that needed electrical power for the pusher motors can be gotten from the newly installed generators ?

[srofficial06]

Also remove the main wheeled landing gear from their pods and fabricate a skid that will insert into the four points from whence the lading gear shafts were extracted

[srofficial06]

Or by the same line of reasoning in a battlefield type situation "it" could carry aloft a VLEC or very large extension cord for the purposes of receiving power from ground based electrical generation equipment to supply its laser or particle beam type weapons system and or a highly powerful radar system for monitoring the battlefield ?

[srofficial06]

Essentially a CH-108? And if it could be accomplished and those main rotors could be " feathered" for the purposes of shipboard transport this unit could act as an extension of a river or bay based fire boat ? In that it could lift and carry an extensive length of firehose and pumping equipment of its own to compliment that on board the fireboat and if deployed in and around big cities with high rise complexes close to the shoreline might prove invaluable fighting high rise fires?

[srofficial06]

located between , below and slightly forward of the two main rotors . forward momentum and additional stabilization would be achieved via two directional electric motored pusher props located in what was formerly the cockpit in the standard ch -54 ?