flying h-34

If you flew the bell-47-g you were familar with how the 34 did. as in all turns was one of the most important things you had to watch. the "g-bell had a turbo that you had to keep an eye on but the 34 pilot watched his manifold pressure as close as his turns. run up rpm, lift collective until light on struts, continue pulling while watching manifold pressure and bingo you could be airborne.

H34's a slow lumberimg helo. Never qual on ir, but gir a few hrs om in rhem, incluing Gate guard at NR. Flew whith HMM-768/MARTD Detroit, kooking back wish was more. A Maj Barry Schulz was a real hor dog but could put anywhere u wamted it.

Sound

The one thing that I remember the most about the duce was the noise. If you wanted to talk to the pilot you had to stand on the ladder and look at them and scream to have them hear you. When the 37 first came out the crew compained about the noise so the corpman took a decibel meter up on a flight and pegged it out.
It was still the most fun I had was flying them, noise and all you could get up and walk around in the belly which I couldnt do comfortably in the 34s

H-34

I was stationed at MARTD Alameda 71 -73 and we had 6 or 8 34's before they replaced them with CH-53's. A few memories but good ones. The first time I flew as a Crew Chief was in one of those 34's, down to Le Moore NAS to bring home a combat stressed A-7 pilot that had lost it after many missions in Vietnam. As they loaded him in on the stretcher they told me that he was heavily sedated and though he had been violent, I had nothing to worry about for the short trip up to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital !! Set down on the lawn there and he was still out. Sad to look through his military redord. 3 or 4 kids, lots of missions. My initiatiion to working on these choppers was changning inter cylider drain lines. What a huge recip! Then I got to help track blades. Not with a strobe like the 53 but with a freaking stick and a piece of canvas tied to it. Each blade had different color chalk on the end and as the new guy I got to "slowly" walk up to the blades as they were truning until you heard a tic, tic, tic...then back out. Not so easy it seems. Don't know how many times it ripped that stick out of my hands.......Finally, after I got out in 73 I went to work for SFO Helicopter in Oakland and though they were flying 3 S-61's they did retrofit work and I helped convert a 34 to turbine. Can't remember what size engine , T-51???? Used to love stepping on to the landing gear struts with a gunners belt on