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our industry part‐ners Yulista and SES‐I, worked fever‐ishly to meet that
requirement. Bernie Parr lead
the work calls, which happened on the first and third Saturday’s of the
Since the last newsletter in the fall, a significant amount of progress has been made on our UH‐1C 66‐00623. This restora‐tion effort is the collabo‐ration both Saving Our Flying Heri‐tage (SOFH) and the Northern Alabama Chapter of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Asso‐ciation (NAVHPA). When we took on this res‐toration ef‐fort, the goal set by our presi‐dent, Ralph Weber was to have the UH‐1C ready for the 2012 Huntsville Veterans Day Parade. Members of both organiza‐tions, along with
month. The team of vol‐unteers put on the fi‐nal touches, to include installing the pilot's windshield, co‐pilot's cyclic and collective. Co‐pilot's chin bubble, both cargo doors and both pilot's doors. All fairings are installed as well as the jettison racks and mounting the rocket pods. On Veterans Day 2012, in a driving drizzle, our UH‐1C made its way along the pa‐rade route in downtown Huntsville, AL, accom‐plishing the mission of our President, Ralph Weber, a year previ‐ously.
Although the parade was com‐plete, the work on the UH‐1C was far from done. From the parade line, 623 was taken back to the Madison County Airport and inducted back into the maintenance loop for more work which couldn't be completed prior to the
parade. The new year brought additional work on the
(Continued on page 2)
66-00623
Special points of interest:
66-00623 nearing com-pletion. It has attended many events through the Winter 2012 to Spring 2013 months.
SOFH acquires its first flyable aircraft, a U3B.
Chapter President sets the goal of seeing 92T, in US Army colors and “official” first flight by September 1st, 2014.
SOFH meets the first Thursday of every month.
Spring Newsletter
Inside this issue:
http://hsv-sofh.webs.com/ Volume 1, Issue 4
New Pr o jec t—Th e F ir s t F l igh t o f th e U3B
2
66-00623 (c on t ) 2
M i l i t ar y H is tor y Booksh e l f
3
A B O U T T H I S P U B L I C A -
T I O N 4
M O N T H L Y M E E T I N G 4
Pr e s id en ts Corner 5
SOFH M I S S I O N S T A T E -
M E N T 5
Two generations of Army soldiers share stories during the 2012 Veterans Day Parade.
Members of the SOFH and the NAVHPA at the Welcome Home celebration 2013.
It has always been a goal of the SOFH to take posses‐sion of a flying piece of military
history and make it flyable again. That goal was reached on 30 March 2013 thanks to a generous donor. Mr. David Floyd do‐nated a Cessna 310D (U3B), N2992T to the SOFH. This is a 1960s vintage air‐plane that has obvi‐ously been well‐used but well‐loved.
The SOFH received a Ferry Flight per‐mit and the one time flight was executed on the 6th of April with Denny Boyer at the controls. Denny was able to get the engines started without too much trouble. The right generator did not appear to work but would “flicker” – he also tried to watch the landing gear indicators to see if they were brighter or not with the generator in the “ON” posi‐tion but really could not tell any real difference. The aircraft was Flown per the Ferry Flight limitations, which was single pilot, Day, VFR, gear down. On the take off roll air‐speed was slow to come up and after
take off it dropped to 60‐70 MPH and never got above that. Since Denny was already air‐borne he continued the flight to MDQ with Monty Offutt flying chase. Gear down and power back he landed at MDQ. (Yes still no Air‐speed indication – pitch + Power + configuration ‐= Air Speed still works). On May 18th, the annual inspection was started. The aircraft was jacked and the gear swing inspection per‐formed per the man‐ual. Landing gear as well as the emergency gear ex‐tension inspection was completed. The main and nose gear down lock tensions were all within the tolerances. The
aircraft as well as more opportunities to showcase our UH‐1C. One such event for 623 was its participation in the First Annual Welcome Home Viet‐nam Veterans cele‐bration, held at the Madison County Veterans Memorial
(Continued from page 1) on 29 March 2013.
Over 900 people attended the event, which in‐cluded the Army Material Command (AMC) Band, Alabama Patriot Riders, Laying of the Wreath, Posting of the Colors by Kilo Battery, 2nd Battal‐ion, 14th Marines Huntsville Color
Page 2 Spring Newsletter
623 at the Welcome Home Ceremony March 2013
66-00623 (cont)
New Project—The First Fl ight of the U3B
The SOFH has its first
flyable aircraft, a
Cessna 310D, known to the Army as the U3B!!
Guard and taps, and speeches by area dignitaries and lo‐cal leaders. Events such as these will continue to showcase 623 and the ingenuity and persistence the members of both or‐ganizations showed during her refur‐bishment
Cessna 310D, Tail Number N2992T
This issue we review a military history book which is not about avia‐tion. Many of you might think “what is the point, this or‐ganization is about saving our Flying Heritage”. The reason is because on 2 February 2013 the author of this book, Chris Kyle, and an‐other ex‐Navy SEAL were tragically shot down while trying to help a fellow solder suffering from PTSD. This book review is written in Kyle’s Honor. With more than 250 confirmed kills in Iraq and several citations for brav‐ery, including two Silver Stars, Kyle may well be the “most lethal” sol‐dier in American military history. Fortunately, this memoir takes a more unassuming and ap‐proachable tone in narrating his im‐probable journey from a modest Texas childhood to becom‐
ing a sniper with SEAL Team 3 and serving four deploy‐ments in Iraq” As with other recent books about the SEALs, they are de‐picted as a breed apart: hyper‐competitive, with the most intense training, hazing and bonding rituals (the latter involving much drinking and fighting). Kyle is unapologetic about his own conservative persona. The high‐lights of the narra‐tive are the grim yet often funny ac‐counts of Kyle’s violent battles all over Iraq, most of which are described crisply. The author describes his par‐ticipation in numer‐ous urban battles, such as the pro‐tracted struggles for Ramadi and Fal‐lujah, and asserts that elite operators like himself con‐tributed to Iraq’s evolving stability—“it took violence of action to create a
situation where there could be peace.” Kyle pro‐vides a few surpris‐ing moments, as when he writes eloquently about his fellow veterans, including SEALs killed or wounded in battle. “There’s no reason someone who has fought for their country should be homeless or job‐less,” he writes. Kyle’s wife offers her counterpoint narrative in itali‐cized passages, driving home the surreal life of dif‐ficulty bestowed on professional warri‐ors’ loved ones. This aggressively written account of frontline combat, with plenty of ac‐tion and technical nitty‐gritty, should appeal to conserva‐tive readers and military buffs. This book is defi‐nitely worth your time.
Page 3 Spring Newsletter
U3B in Army Colors
Mi l i tary History Bookshelf
Chris Kyle,
the author of
American
Sniper, and
Chad
Littlefield
were shot
while helping
a fellow
returning
with PTSD
crew also performed the squat switch activation check, and was good. They changed out the two main tires and
(Continued from page 2) tubes. All three sets of wheel bear‐ings were removed, cleaned, inspected, repacked and rein‐stalled. The nose strut was serviced and measurements
First Fl ight (cont)
made for the engine cowling nose plugs.
Work on the U3B will continue one weekend a month beginning in June.
The Saving Our Fly‐ing Heritage (SOFH) Through A Flying Museum newsletter is published quarterly, in line with the change of the sea‐son. If demand is such to warrant a monthly edition, I will gladly publish one. Like other successful publica‐tions around the
world, the chapter will circulate the newsletter elec‐tronically and dis‐tribute to all mem‐bers via email. I will also be working with the chapter webmaster to get this added to the website. If you would like to re‐ceive a hard copy of the SOFH Newsletter,
let me know and I will bring copies to the monthly meet‐ings. Also, if you have any good arti‐cle ideas or would like to include your own articles, send them to my email address and I will include them in subsequent editions (email: richard.s. hanlon.civ@Mail.
will have a showpiece when we are done. Thanks to our new member, David Floyd (who calls himself “Capt. Heavy”), for the donation of the U3B aircraft N6992T. His generosity has been a boon to us all. Although he lives in Illinois, we expect to see him visit us regularly.
I am excited that, after five years, the SOFH has a flyable aircraft. The U3B is over 50 years old! However, through the dedicated efforts of all our members and some enthusiastic volunteers, I expect we will see near mi‐raculous changes over the next year. I am confident that we
Plus, we agreed to allow David to pilot the first flight of our U3B after it is restored. And we keep our promises. Denny Boyer was elected as our Flight Operations Officer in January. He has writ‐ten our first Flight Operations SOP. It details scheduling, recording of flight
restaurants are typically fre‐quented for three months in a row, after which the SOFH give another Huntsville estab‐lishment a try. Spouses are en‐couraged to attend, as well as prospec‐tive members and Army Aviation en‐thusiasts. If you have suggestion on fu‐ture restaurant
visits, contact Scott Handlon at richard.s.Hand [email protected], who is the SOFH event coordinator with your sugges‐tions. The group is always looking for great food in the Huntsville / Madison area. If the venue changes, an email will be sent to the members to denote the change.
The SOFH has its monthly meet‐ings at various restaurants throughout the cit‐ies of Huntsville and Madison. Meet‐ings are held the first Thursday of the month, with or‐ders for food placed at approxi‐mately 6:30 p.m. Meeting details are available on the website www. Hsv‐sofh.webs.com. The
Page 4 Spring Newsletter
Monthly Meetings
Presidents Corner
About this publication
I hope to see you next
month and you can
expect to see another
edition of the SOFH
Newsletter next
quarter.
SOFH President Ralph Weber
SAVING OUR FLYING HERITAGE THROUGH A FLYING MUSEUM is a 501(c)(3) non‐profit association of veteran, governmen‐tal, business entities, and individual members, with the major emphasis of supporting Army Aviation thru present‐ing the Army aviation history to the American people through narrated, patriotic flying presentations and static displays of the actual aircraft and equipment used by the men and women who served in Army Aviation. This is accomplished through the acquisition, restora‐tion, and maintenance of historic flyable army aviation aircraft representing Army Aviation.
tions. Bernie Parr is still our Maintenance Offi‐cer. He tells me that he and Denny have a plan to complete the annual inspection, apply all the overdue Airworthiness Direc‐tives (AD) and per‐form the stoppage inspection on 92T within one year. This should make our U3B flyable and reliable again. Then we need to address getting it painted back to its old US Army colors. See page 3 for a pic‐ture of what it might look like then. But...all this will not be cheap. I estimate that we will need to raise dona‐tions, either in cash or in‐kind totaling more than $20 thou‐sand! So, we will all have to apply our‐selves to identifying potential donors. I will be glad to visit or call anyone. But I cannot know everyone. You know many more folks than I. Let me
hours and mission bidding processes. Denny is looking for all of us to help in revising the SOP as a living document. You can find a copy on the SOFH web site under Documents. One of the dangers of small organizations having flyable air‐craft is that it can become a “flying club”. In other words, it can become a club where all work and pay but only the favored or favorites get to enjoy the re‐wards. In this case, access to the U3B as pilot or crew. To his credit, Denny has included in the SOP an objective system for accumulat‐ing “bid points” to qualify any member to fly in the U3B, (or any other SOFH air‐craft in the future). Points are earned by years of membership in SOFH and hours worked on our air‐craft or equipment. Please contact Denny if you have any ques‐
know who to call or visit. Yulista Aviation has already gener‐ously agreed to allow us to use hangar space for maintenance on the weekends. The will help with parts orders and will pro‐vide some experts to advise us and sign off on our work. Since the SOFH is a Public Charity, organized under IRS chapter 501(C)(3) all contributions are tax deductable. To help to keep us focused, I charge you to contribute as you can to accomplishing the goal of seeing 92T, in US Army col‐ors, have its “official” first flight by September 1st, 2014. I ask all of you to look for more mem‐bers for SOFH. If we can grow, more folks would help make it easier for us all. Thanks for all that you do for SOFH,
Ralph
Presidents Corner (cont)
495 Brenda Drive Madison, AL 35758 EIN 27-2864769
Phone: 256-520-7133
SAVING OUR FLYING HERITAGE
THROUGH A FLYING MUSEUM
SOFH Treasurer Diane Weber inspects 92T
Page 5 Spring Newsletter