I’ve posted shots of Murphy Mooses (or however that should be as a plural) in other posts including one with a turbine engine. This one showed up at Olympia during one of the Olympic Air Shows. It’s an average looking plane but stick it on floats and it immediately looks more interesting. It landed and taxied in and then didn’t move again while I was there but at least I got some shots of it.
When I got to Olympia for the Olympic Air Show, one of the first things I saw on the ramp was a very serious looking Black Hawk. It was equipped with everything you could think off. The ESSS system was mounted, there was a FLIR turret and a variety of weapons. I was rather curious what unit owned it. It turns out it is a civilian owned machine. Northwest Helicopters is the operator and it is used for filming work. That explains it looking so tooled up. A civil registration is discretely on the tail and it says the machine is actually an EH-60. I’ll have to watch out for it in any movies that are coming up.
This one is about as rare as something gets. If you are the only airworthy example, the only thing that is going to beat you is the only example at all. The Kaman Huskie is a neat little helicopter. It features the Kaman intermeshing rotor design which removes the requirement for a tail rotor and results in a pretty compact configuration. These used to be in widespread service with the US forces. Now they are scrapped or in museums.
This one lives in Olympia and it comes out to fly at their annual air show. Apparently, there are only about 14 hours left on the rotor blades and there are no more blades so the flying is rationed carefully to get a few more years out of her. Kaman’s rotor blade design includes control surfaces on the blade so these are not a simple item.
Seeing her towed out was a lot of fun and I was delighted when she taxied out and took off for the display. What a fascinating shape and something genuinely different. I was so pleased, even if the light was rather sketchy. A cloudy Huskie is better than no Huskie at all.
