retiring Presidential Fleet

I want to know what you guys think of trying to relieve a little of
the Op Tempo on our military by creating a mission specific helicopter
medevac/relief group?
The Presidential fleet is retiring its VH-3 helos. I think they
would be great as flood/Hurricane/tornado medevac in places like
Florida/Haiti/Honduras. I was involved in the start up of a museum for
WW2 warbirds and the old mechanics came out of the woodwork to work on
them again for free. I think the same could be done for staffing a new
organization that uses these helos for relief work. As long as they
were fed well and the crews were taken care of, I think retired pilots
and mechanics would love to do something like this. The big benifit
would be taking our overused military out of the requirement.
I am sure there are a bunch of people that want these helos. But I
think it would only need to use 4 or so of the 11 that are retiring.
What do you guys think?
Clayton

Parts are very expensive for that bird. And with about a 20:1 in maint
hours, I think you would be hard pressed to do this. The Navy has lots
of spare parts, but until they get rid of all their H-3's, you can not
get those parts.

On 31 Oct 2004 07:11:43 -0800, (Clayton Ashley)
wrote:

I want to know what you guys think of trying to relieve a little of
the Op Tempo on our military by creating a mission specific helicopter
medevac/relief group?
The Presidential fleet is retiring its VH-3 helos. I think they
would be great as flood/Hurricane/tornado medevac in places like
Florida/Haiti/Honduras. I was involved in the start up of a museum for
WW2 warbirds and the old mechanics came out of the woodwork to work on
them again for free. I think the same could be done for staffing a new
organization that uses these helos for relief work. As long as they
were fed well and the crews were taken care of, I think retired pilots
and mechanics would love to do something like this. The big benifit
would be taking our overused military out of the requirement.
I am sure there are a bunch of people that want these helos. But I
think it would only need to use 4 or so of the 11 that are retiring.
What do you guys think?
Clayton

I think that this sounds good on the surface but is not well thought out.

1) as the other person said before, their are maintenance intensive...
and expensive.

2) Keeping crews current for relief work, ESPECIALLY low level SAR kind
of stuff is going to be difficult.

3) Leave medivac to the trained, professional and CURRENT flight and
medical crews.. civilian or military. More than a few hospitals on the
RECIEVING end of such flights (especially pads on top of buildings) have
individual qualification and insurance requirements for use of the close
in pads.

4) Dont count on free labor. You get what you pay for (not discounting
the quality at all... but if you are under "pressure" to keep the bird
flying or mission ready then you need to have a paid maintenance crew or
contractor who is dedicated to ensuring the bird is ready for callout.
Museum pieces dont tend to have critical mission readiness needs and the
guys comin to "work" on them are doing it for FUN and personal
enrichment. Start putting time pressure on it and FUN turns to work.

Dave

Clayton Ashley wrote:
I want to know what you guys think of trying to relieve a little of
the Op Tempo on our military by creating a mission specific helicopter
medevac/relief group?
The Presidential fleet is retiring its VH-3 helos. I think they
would be great as flood/Hurricane/tornado medevac in places like
Florida/Haiti/Honduras. I was involved in the start up of a museum for
WW2 warbirds and the old mechanics came out of the woodwork to work on
them again for free. I think the same could be done for staffing a new
organization that uses these helos for relief work. As long as they
were fed well and the crews were taken care of, I think retired pilots
and mechanics would love to do something like this. The big benifit
would be taking our overused military out of the requirement.
I am sure there are a bunch of people that want these helos. But I
think it would only need to use 4 or so of the 11 that are retiring.
What do you guys think?
Clayton

Dave S wrote in message hlink.net...
I think that this sounds good on the surface but is not well thought out.

1) as the other person said before, their are maintenance intensive...
and expensive.

2) Keeping crews current for relief work,
3) Leave medivac to the trained, professional
4) Dont count on free labor.
Dave


I proposed that the machines would still belong to the Govt. and the
parts would as well. This is sort of like what Bush proposed with
Govt. and civilian charities comming together to solve a problem.
I think you are underestimating the military personality in items
2,3,and 4. They by nature have a great pride in doing their job and
many I know work extremely hard for a good meal. It would be for prior
service with the proper experience. During the big hurricane in
Hondures a few years ago they sent down some Chinooks with crews that
some members had little training in this work. I remember the guys
complaining about it themselves. I think that with a proper budget
keeping crews current would not be an issue. I am sure there would be
some stand down time every year when weather in Central America is
calm.
Again, the thought is that the military would be glad to hand off
this mission to a dedicated team.
Clayton

The Urban Search and Rescue (I believe that is what they are called) respond to
disasters around the country and world looking for trapped victims and to help
out in the overall rescue effort. I believe what Clayton is saying is having a
dedicated trained heliborne search and rescue unit able to respond quickly to
areas that need them especially where large helicopters are not readily
available like Central America or the Caribbean. With help ($$$$$) from the
govt. and charities (Red Cross etc) this is not a bad idea.

Gerard

Clayton Ashley wrote:
Again, the thought is that the military would be glad to hand off
this mission to a dedicated team.

Clayton, you're right the the money is a small amount compared to the
federal budget, but you may be being optimistic about the cost of
such an operation.

The maintenance on an older aircraft like the H-3 is in the ballpark
of 30 MMH/FH, and the dollar cost a few thousand dollars per flight
hour. So the total cost would approach a cool million per aircraft
per year if, as Dave S said, you want to keep the aircrews reasonably
proficient at this kind of work.

I figure there are a lot of much less worthy, more expensive programs
run by public money, but my cynical side tells me there are probably
much better and cheaper ideas killed off.