I Love Brenda

I saw her a few nights ago for the first time and then again today. I'd love to fly away with her but she belongs to someone else. She's complicated, carries a lot of baggage, and is probably high maintenance, but I don't care; I think she's beautiful. I already told my wife about Brenda and she said that she understands - she loves Brenda too.

I've always been an Elvis man, myself.

We were talking about Skycranes here last night, as one did a water drop behind my sister's house yesterday. I read that Sikorsky only built 31 of them. I've only seen one. 

Brenda has some long legs on her!

I've loved Skycranes since I saw one fighting a forest fire as a wee lad. Very cool pieces of equipment

I've seen them up close and personal a few times as they fly into FLagstaff when we've got fires nearby. 

I was surprised at how quiet they are when unloaded. Loaded, they've got some good chop, but not nearly as bad as the V-22, nor the CH-53. 

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

We were talking about Skycranes here last night, as one did a water drop behind my sister's house yesterday. I read that Sikorsky only built 31 of them. I've only seen one. 

Is your sister in the local area?  I saw a funky looking helicopter flying really low yesterday and was wondering what it was. It wasn't the usually Sikorsky test flights I see, those are typically at higher altitudes.

They aren't Sikorskys anymore.  Eriksson bought the design, patents, tooling, everything. Weird how it works. The FAA recognize s them as Erikssons.

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

dj06482 (Forum Supporter) said:

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

We were talking about Skycranes here last night, as one did a water drop behind my sister's house yesterday. I read that Sikorsky only built 31 of them. I've only seen one. 

Is your sister in the local area?  I saw a funky looking helicopter flying really low yesterday and was wondering what it was. It wasn't the usually Sikorsky test flights I see, those are typically at higher altitudes.

Reno. 

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I see Chinooks over 06482 periodically. Usually weekends. Probably National Guard. 

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

Every once in a while, a Kaman will fly through the area. They're out of Bloomfield. I've only seen a couple.

They look really weird if you're used to daily Sikorsky flyovers. 

I dunno.  Brenda looks like she'd be high maintenance.

Definitely wasn't in Reno yesterday!

I think It was a Kamman K-Max that I saw. It was low, loud, and looked taller and narrow. One of my friends from high school actually worked for them for a few years. 

I did see a Chinook over the past week, as well. We actually get a decent amount of air traffic over the house, we must be on the flight paths for some of the local airports. 
 

Nothing beats the time my parents house was buzzed by some low-flying A10s when I was in High School. I won't ever forget that experience!

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

Depends on where you're at and the color of the Chinook.  If brown/tan then you're right, National Guard or regular Army. If fancy paint job then those are retired army Chinooks sold to civilian companies. The old CH-47D the army replaced with CH-47F's. Most are used for fire support as they can haul as much as Skycranes. Some even have an internal water tank that has a hose hanging down and they can hover over a lake/river and fill the internal water tank for fire drop.

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

I was on the 100ft ladder at the fire academy and had an A10 fly by banked over at 180 degrees.  Super cool. I have some A10 pictures from that week, but didn't have the camera ready that time. 

In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :

Whenever I see Chinooks in your area, there's always a pair of them. 

I love how the engines are exposed.  All business.  

During new employee orientation they told us that they Skycrane was the kind of aircraft that Igor Sikorsky had always wanted to make; a helicopter with extreme levels of utility beyond what anyone could have dreamed of.  I think he accomplished that.

A film photo that I probably scanned 20 years ago: 1990 I was at Ft Rucker, AL and my grandfather (in the awesome pants) drove up from Florida to visit. This National Guard Tarhe flew in to pick up a C-47 (with the wings off) to carry it to a museum in Florida. I probably have the photos of it flying away somewhere.

So, where do they keep the fuel? A burn rate of 500+ gallons per hour takes a lot of gallons of fuel, but where?

Sorry AACZD, Brenda's already dating Windlifter.

Brenda looks like she'd be pretty delicate but I know full well she'd handle some harrowing situations.

This morning I was getting ready to head to Tulsa and checked to see if she was still there: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N159AC

She had left at around 6:00 am and I figured that I'd have no chance for a last look and to say goodby, but when I got to the airport, there she was with her crew.

They had set a big AC unit on top of the Hard Rock Casino and had just come back to the airport. We had a moment to chat and I checked her out. She's pretty old fashioned and I respect that.

I would have asked to take her out just once around the pattern, but my crew called for pick-up and her crew was ready to head to lunch. Just as well. She's always on the road, traveling the world and I've got close ties and obligations where I am. It just wouldn't work out between us. They are off to fight fires in Idaho next and I wished them all a safe journey. Farewell and Aloha Brenda.

STM317 said:

So, where do they keep the fuel? A burn rate of 500+ gallons per hour takes a lot of gallons of fuel, but where?

Three tanks all near the center. She looks skinny, but that can be deceptive being that large. There's plenty of room to hide 450 gallon tanks when most of the mechanical bits are on the outside of the frame. I didn't ask, but with that much weight in fuel, they must manage flow to keep the CG where they want it. Still with a rotor diameter of 72' the CG range is probably not a big concern.

They said that Brenda burns about 540 Gallons an hour and cruises at around 100 knots which gives them a useable duration of about two hours before they need to find more gas.

In helicopters we look at fuel more often as a weight than a volume. She burns about 3,600 lbs of fuel per hour. Compare to the Blackhawks burning about 775 lbs/hr and typical single engine helicopters burning a little over 300 lbs/hr. Brenda is heavy, but she can lose weight fast.

Back in the '80s, they used the original Guppy to haul them around. I took these in Kinston, NC in '87.

In reply to AAZCD (Forum Supporter) :

So they're basically burning an E46 M3's weight in fuel per hour. Damn...