On Tue, 18 May 2004 07:40:40 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"John Hairell" wrote in message
...

snip interesting stuff

Not well known is that there was a spook component to the original
OH-6 competition. More airframes were manufactured than made public.
40+ airframes were built and flown/tested/crash tested prior to and
during the LOH flyoffs, and some of those aircraft were later used by
three-letter agencies.

John Hairell )

Lemme guess...they were painted black, right? :-) Geeze, John--you just gave
the alt.conspiracy.whacko crowd the definitive proof of the existance of
"black helicopters" that they have been salivating over...

Well, hell, all they need to do is find a photo of the black H-19 operated by
the CIA during the Korean War. IIRC it was used to bring out from North Korea a
fair amount of a crash-landed MiG-15 that had its major bits dismantled in the
field, and possibly for agent insertions/extractions as well.

After the war it was re-deployed to Roswell, where . . . uh, never mind;-)

Guy (serious about the Korean war usage)



I was serious about the spook usage of OH-6 prototypes also. After
more than 10 years of researching OH-6 information and history (for a
book I never wrote), I came to the conclusion (mainly from
photographic evidence) that there were more airframes built than
publicly announced. Supposedly only six YOH-6 airframes were built,
but I also knew that some extra airframes had been built for crash
testing. I also knew that there had been early spook agency usage of
OH-6/500 airframes. I discussed this with Wayne Mutza, who is writing
a book on the OH-6/500 family, and he interviewed former Hughes
managers. It turns out that many more "test" airframes were built
prior to the production run of OH-6As, and there indeed was some sort
of covert usage early on, and also later on in the Vietnam War.
Various spook agencies thus have been involved with the OH-6/500
family from day one.

What color they were I won't venture to guess. ;-)

John Hairell )