Tag Archives: venom

A Marine Corps Bonus Package

One weekend, I was at Boeing Field for a visiting warbird.  I was pleasantly surprised to see some US Marine Corps helicopters across the field too.  A combination of UH-1Y Venoms and AH-1Z Vipers were on the ramp.  I had no idea if or when they would fly.  However, luck was on my side as a Venom/Viper pair fired up and launched on a training mission.  The rest stayed on the ramp while I was there but this pair taxied out to the main runway and then departed past my location.  A nice extra!

Marine Week

wpid10983-AU0E6829.jpgEn route from a day with a client to the airport I had a spare hour to pay a visit to Boeing Field in Seattle. I figured that my time window would mean there was nothing much to see and I didn’t have anything longer than the 24-105 with me anyway. However, when I got there I could see an interesting collection of USMC machines on the opposite side of the field and the Blue Angels were parked up near the Museum of Flight.

wpid10985-AU0E6834.jpgI took a ride around to where the Marine helicopters and V-22 were parked and got chatting to one of the crews. He explained it was the start of Marine Week and offered a chance to walk around the ramp with one of the crew. I was not going to refuse that. Mario kindly showed me around and let me shoot anything external. They had three UH-1Y Venoms and three AH-1Z Cobras along with a single V-22. One fof the Cobras was marked up in special squadron colors. I took a walk around all of them and grabbed a few shots while chatting with Mario about what it was like to support these machines. He had worked on the UH-1N before converting to the Venom so he had some interesting perspectives on the relative reliability of the two.

wpid10989-AU0E6839.jpgThese machines were going to be progressively moved across to the other side of the field as part of the public displays for Marine Week and the first of the Cobras actually was towed while I was there so my timing was excellent. However I did have to go and then my timing let me down as, while I was driving away, I saw an AV-8B Harrier II coming down the approach. Oh well. I still did better than I had expected.