Poking about in a Huey….

Ask the 121st AHC Soc Trang Tigers.
http://www.121avn.org/
They used “B”s, called the Vikings.
The “D”s were called the Tigers, “The Good Widow Mrs Jones” or “Strawberry Bitch” are good examples.
Soc Trang was also in the Mekong Delta. The three major fields were Can Tho, Ving Long & Soc Trang.
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It’s owned by the local college for their A&P program. The students get to work on it a bit, they removed & reinstalled the engine last year. Right now we’re jumping through hoops to get the college to allow people from outside the college to work on it. New paint job was mentioned so I made a 2 minute phone call & looks like I have the materials donated. Original plan was 114th paint scheme but I can’t get anyone from that unit interested at all, so I may throw a 129th AHC paint job on it as a friend flew with them… so it would look like Huey #509 in the UK, but with the correct nose art (yellow Shelby style Cobra for a gunship).
Took me ages to find the ID of this bird & then within about 10 minutes of getting it the guy who was crew chief with Boeing came out of the woodwork. It was used as a test bird for radar that was installed on missiles apparently.

It has a decal on one side from Wa State dated 1990. The college have owned it for a while. Immediate plan is to install the T/R driveshaft so it can be run without the chance of unintentional excitement. They have the shaft, they’re missing the mounts to bolt it to the boom. Also need to replace the r/h greenhouse as a student put his hand through it. Was surprised to find it was only 2mm thick.

Downloaded the maint manuals & parts books from UH1 Ops.com They have just about everything in their resources section.

Now waiting for the Risk Assessment people at the college to give the go ahead after they look at liability issues of letting a bunch of Vietnam Vets loose on it.. 🙂

Hello RB,
I will confirm what you say about the a/c. Super!
But I guess a finger goof…the C was of course a 204 with many improvements. The 205 was a D
The US Army A, B, C & M was a 204.
The US Army D, H & V was a 205.

ZRX,

Are there any plans for #8554?, mutilated lift beam acknowledged!
I notice when registered as N39502, there were dates showing activity as ‘recent’ as 2006. The same internet search showed the title holder then, as ‘Boeing Logistics Spares Inc’.
The colour scheme seen in FB is reminiscent of the Boeing paint schemes worn by their airliner demonstrators in the 80’s.

RB,

VR-BDX, was, I think, the last 204 in BHL?

They are so nice to work on and good to fly too. The 205 (C model) was even nicer though and the later models had/have the benefit of dual hydraulics and a few other refinements. Many a happy hour/day/week spent playing with them.

#63-08554. B model, former 114th AHC gunship based at Vinh Long in ’65-’66. I’m getting edumacated as I blunder along 🙂

The top pic is looking in at the main gearbox from the RH side (scavenge line and No.4 jet visible) and the lower pic is from the LH side (XMSN sight glasses and No.1 Hyd Pumpvisible). The extraneous bits of tubing look like the remains of the seating or maybe a litter arrangement. Looks like a 204 to me.

Hang on……. just had another look. The tubing is the MGB fairing support which is pulled out and away from the MGB before pivoting forward to access to the MGB. Sorry, it’s been a few years since I last worked on one (like 37). 🙂

RB

Cowl hinge frame doodad.

The *permanent grounding* mods included cutting a hole in the main beam with an angle grinder… A friend who flew them in Vietnam said “Pah! That ain’t gonna stop me”…. or words to that effect. Although he did admit the lack of a T/R driveshaft would be somewhat problematic.

What sort of frame are we looking at? Controls? I’m not that familiar with the innards of Hueys I’m afraid.

I wonder if they did that so it “can’t” fly again?

Dozens more pics here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.1345910745430282&type=1