SPA Modeler

The US Army retired their Hueys around the turn of this century. But the Marines are still flying their updated Twin Hueys... with no replacement in sight! That’s a pretty good long service life span! I’ll bet in civil aviation that they have at least another 50 years left to go!

On rare occasions, I do hear the familiar sound of a wup, wup, wup.... so I knew it was a Huey.

BlackSheep214 wrote:On rare occasions, I do hear the familiar sound of a wup, wup, wup.... so I knew it was a Huey.

It’s funny how on TV shows or in movies, for nearly every helicopter that you see on the screen, the Huey sound is dubbed in there. A few movies get it right, but not too high a percentage. Once upon a time it was the old Bell H-13 for all the dubbed chopper sounds.
Side note, years ago there were Hueys and Cobras, which sound nearly identical, flying out of a nearby Army Airfield. Whenever I would hear that wop wop wop sound, I’d always look up to see what it was flying, a snake or a slick.

Yeah... especially a Jet Ranger sounding like a Huey...

The wop wop is one thing, but what always kills me is when the pilot throttles back when he's still five feet high in the hover. I still cringe and wait for the crash.

We swapped our Hueys for NH-90's in 2015.
These birds were the sound of my childhood. Me and my sister were air-force brats, dad left when i was about 18months. But that wop-wop sound was the sound of safety for us.
Me and dad went to an airshow when i was about 16, there was a major accident down the road, the skies cleared and the display huey headed off to airlift people to the hospital.
And during the 2011 earthquakes hearing these birds hovering over the city made us all feel that little bit more safe.
They will always have a special place in a lot of peoples hearts.
I cant wait to see how this build goes.

We still have some Bell 212s in RAF and ARMY service in the UK - that's sort of a Huey! (ish)



Great to see a UH-1 being built though, you can't really have a Vietnam GB without one!

The 212 is basicly the same as the UH-1N. It’s a Huey.

jeaton01 wrote:The wop wop is one thing, but what always kills me is when the pilot throttles back when he's still five feet high in the hover. I still cringe and wait for the crash.

There's alot of inertia in a Huey rotor system. In the book Chickenhawk by Robert Mason he mentioned they would kill the throttle, pick the Huey up to a 3 foot hover, do a 360 degree turn and set it back down.

I'm really looking forward to this build for two reasons, 1.) I have this kit "in stock" and have wanted to see a WIP on it for a while now and 2.) The "Huey" is near and dear to my heart as I spent 8+ years as a UH-1H crewchief with around 900 hours of flight time + around 1-2 hours of "stick time". I have alot of fond and enjoyable memories on that ol' bird. Very forgiving and reliable as well as a beautiful aircraft. They still give rides in Georgia and at some of the air shows here and there. Still looking for one in Texas so I can take my family on one. I miss the ol' gal though and I miss flying. Best job of my entire life.

Below is a clipping from the "Stars & Stripes" paper in 1990 while I was at Ft. Hood.