Warbird Information Exchange

Not fifty left in inventory, there a couple of thousand, here there and everywhere.

Only 50-100 funded as operational for fy09 forward. Though, I will admit many things change.

I have no idea of the capablities of the 145. I was in Medivac/Dustoff for many years. I do know that we had no problems with using it as an EMS bird.

I also flew MAST missions for awhile. We could get three to six litter patients depending on configuration. How many do the 145 carry?

The way I hear it is that the operational cost per hour is higher than the Huey. Downtime is higher and mission interoperability is not as great. Also with the cost of the war the money is not there to fund enough airframes for domestic ( read National Guard/Reserve) use. It was determined that it would be cheaper to put the Huey through a super IRAN than to buy new airframes.

There is NO money right now to fund the 145 into the Reserve Components till FY 2025. I kid you not. There are some "Paper" proposals, but; they are just that.

Initially the individual states "hurried" the drawdown and retirement of the Huey along. This was in anticipation of gaining new airframes. This has not happened in the way that the States thought it would.

In otherwords the States thought that for each Huey it retired it would recieve a brand new Blackhawk or new LUH.

Instead most unit are lucky to have been inactivated or have received hand me down "A" model Blackhawks.

In the Ohio Guard we litterally received our first few airframes on the back of a truck and it took many months of work to put them back into service.

There is NO plan in place to replace those "A" models till fy 2020, or beyond.

Partially this is a result of being at war. All new build Blackhawks are going to the Active Army to replace war losses.

Bye the way it may interest you to know that when a National Guard unit goes overseas with brand new equipment, they almost always leave it behind.

This means that on paper the National Guard has recieved "x" amount of new equipment, when in reality most of it is turned over to the IA. When we come home we get issued Dueces and non upgraded Hummers.

Joe

The Ohio Guard birds out of Columbus fly over the house all the time.
They do practice approaches here in Zanesville at the local airport.

Took this last summer.


Mike

Hey Mike,

I'm out of Newark. We used to have a pilot in Alpha Company that lived in Taboso and would fly out your way all the time.

I have been out of the 1/137th for a little while now.

Question; Armyjunk2 list an AH-1 in Zanesville downtown. I could never find it. Have you seen it? Or is it in someones back yard awaiting a pedestal to be built?

Joe

I work for a company that has several 145's. They are great aircraft for EMS. Once again, to say that anything can replace the legendary UH-1 is a stretch, but it is a great aircraft. We save lives everyday with it.

_________________
Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

OMG...I lived at Indian Town Gap when I was 4-5 (in the Dark Ages as a military brat). Didn't know the post still existed.....thanks for a interesting memory.