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Vietnam
Helicopter Pilots Association Washington State Chapter |
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We heard from John Crossman a VHPA member who came up with a great cleanup project to restore one of our vintage Hueys to its former glory. He sent in this article about how it was accomplished. Perhaps we should fly this cleaned-up slick in the Parade next year... It’s Just Like Washing the Car….Only Much Bigger
I coach kids….mostly teenagers….in competitive rifle shooting and, by coincidence, one of those kids, also a Boy Scout, had earlier approached me about a possible Eagle project. We pursued that first with the Museum Curator, and then with the Boy Scout hierarchy to see if this undertaking would meet the requirements of an Eagle project. “Sorry…no,” was the Scouts’ response, “This falls under the heading of ‘maintenance’ and Eagle projects are supposed to involve creating things from scratch.”
A follow-on phase, pending approval by the Museum Curator, will be to restore the flat-black paint job on those areas that were colored a uniform OD green when the Huey was last painted by a contractor, to include the top of the nose, the roof antennas, the stinger and the tail rotor blades themselves, plus the normal red-and-white striping on the tail rotor. The cast of characters are (left to right) John Crossman (author of this blurb, VHPA-WA member and Old Slick Driver), Josh Martin from Yelm, Kyle Rebillion from Tacoma, Josh Pagel from University Place, Travis [last name unknown…friend of Josh P.] from University Place and Dawson Morris from Tenino. Kyle, Dawson and both Joshes are members of the Capitol City Junior Rifle Club, based in Thurston and Pierce Counties.
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Around mid-Summer, while
taking a pair of Czech visitors to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, I
commented on the lack of decent helicopter displays there. On the way home, we
dropped in at Fort Lewis and visited the Huey H-model in the inner courtyard of
the Fort Lewis Museum. As an old slick driver, I was dismayed at the amount of
moss, mold and other grime that had accumulated on this bird and started working
on ways to get it cleaned up.
With
that news in hand, my next thought was that I would offer to do it myself. I
approached the Museum staff and they agreed that they’d like to see this project
finished before winter really set in. Applying 20/20 hindsight, it was good
that I had recruited five other kids, including the rebuffed Boy Scout, from
among our junior competitors, because it turned out to be a pretty hefty job.
On a sunny Saturday in late October, we all gathered in the courtyard well
before the Museum opened for the day, and got to work. Five hours later, the
moss and grime had been removed, the decaying birds nests and droppings had been
removed from various cavities in the tail boom, and the Plexiglas windows had
been waxed. It looked sharp! The accompanying photo pretty much tells it all.