On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 12:45 PM, John Francis <[email protected]> wrote: > >> We get a lot of Chinook helicopters flying over here too, and they are also >> unmistable and very loud. You can feel the pounding in your chest long >> before you can see them, or even hear them for that matter - some sort of >> subsonic vibration seems to precede them. > > I've heard them, too. Contemporary reports suggested that sound of the big > Chinook was a significant part of the impact of the helicopter gunships in > Vietnam. Of course "Puff the Magic Dragon" (a military version of the DC3, > the C-47, fitted with a pair of 7.62 mini guns with a rate of fire of up to > 6000 rounds per minute) could deliver greater firepower, for a longer period, > but it didn't have that big throbbing backbeat. Neither played Wagner's > "Ride of the Valkyries", either, but that's a whole different movie. > >
The Chinook gunships never did play a large role in Vietnam as only 4 were ever built, only 3 ever made it to Vietnam and they only were actively used for a couple years early in the war (Late 65 through mid-68). They were very heavuly armed though. The main use of the Chinook in Vietnam was as a medium lift helicopter hauling cargo or larger detachments of troops. I suspect you're thinking of the very distinctive sound of the Huey's, especially in the Gunship role. Huey Snakes, and later the Huey Cobra were the primary gunships used in Vietnam. Note the Chinook may be loud, but the sound isn't terribly distinctive, they sound very similar to a number of other twin-rotor designs, many of which were still active back then. If you want a really distinctive sound though, nothing matches the Bell 214's. They're a Huey on a serious case of steriods and sound exactly like that, with a much deeper and slower version of the Huey's classic whop-whop sound. -Adam. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
