Ft. Knox Flight - 1

The note is a little long today. Good luck getting through it. If nothing else, you can just glance at the photos and then delete!

Chris was on the flight schedule on our last full day of our visit. Flight is never simple and the Army certainly adds extra layers for delays. There is a park opposite of the airport where I could park and watch any action (it was slow). I arrived at the expected time of flight and photographed a few aircraft while waiting. None of these photos involve Chris.

The first aircraft was the Army's equivalent of a King Air twin turboprop. This is a really nice airplane that I was fortunate to ride between Orange and Victoria back in my DuPont days.

There was another Blackhawk UH-60 getting in a little practice flying approaches and autorotates (recovery/landing in the case of full loss of power - really bad in a helicopter!). In a runway environment, a helicopter is easier to take off with forward motion. The typical thought/view of a helicopter taking off straight up from a hover is a more difficult move since the rotor wash from the blades fouls the air around the helicopter (less efficient lift). In a rolling takeoff, less fouled air is around the aircraft. The result of this is a significant forward tilt to the aircraft with that odd feeling of your nose pointed at the ground yet actually moving forward (totally different than an airplane). Without a fixed wing, the blades essentially tilt forward acting as a blend of both vertical lift and forward thrust. You see this posture in the below photo.

When the helicopter comes in to land, again a rolling landing is the more simple technique for the same reason - minimize fouled air. What is odd if you have never watched one practicing this technique is the tail-first touchdown. You can see how odd if must feel in the cockpit as you are relatively blind other than your side views.

Here is one another view of a Blackhawk as it passed in front of me (still waiting on Chris). I prefer camera settings that don't freeze the blades. A little blade-blur provides a much better sense of motion/action. You see the "problem" in this photo (1/2000 sec shutter speed).

Of course the challenge is to slow down the shutter enough to get blade blur but not jeopardize the focus on a moving object. The photo below was taken with a 1/100 sec shutter speed with a zoom of 348 mm - way outside of recommended camera parameters - particularly when hand-held (no tripod). The image stabilization technology has come a long way in cameras. You also see in this shot where there is a little weather developing over us......

Thanks,

Doug White

https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/