Helo ride on the moon

[BigTruck]

As some of you know i just recently returned from a two month training exercise in the middle of friggin nowhere on the Big Island of Hawaii, or affectionately known as PTA by fellow service members.  At an elevation of 7,000ft and nothing but fresh lava flows and craters, PTA closely resembles the moon haha.  Well here's some shots of us doing a helo insertion on the moon via the Marine Corps' trusty old CH-53's...and some of you may know what I mean when i say if she's leakin she's good!   We came off that bird stained in JP8 and numerous other aircraft fluids dripping off the ceiling  :D

Securing the Landing Zone.  You can see the snow covered summit of Mauna Loa in the back ground.




Inbound bird, that's our FOB in the background...home sweet home for two months.


Loading the bird


My boys!!  No one else I would rather be riding a chopper with


Our wing man following close behind and an artillery line on the ground below us, utilizing the brand new 777 Howitzers


Ride's over, GET OUT!

[J.]

awesome pics!

is this just a training exercise or are you on deplorment?

[Omag 2.0]

Whoa! What a big chopper! Excellent shot of that beast arriving! I also like the in flight shot. Might not be the clearest shots I've ever seen, but they sure bring us the atmosphere like non have done before! Thanks for posting these.  :)

[BigTruck]

It was a deployment but just a training deployment, not actual combat, we were training a few grunt Battalions on their way to Afghanistan.

Resizing the pictures I think took a lot of the clarity out of the pics because the ones on my computer look pretty good, but it is also very dusty out there so my lense was always pretty dirty, it's my field camera  ;D  Glad you liked them though!!

[MWISimmer]

..You can see the snow covered summit of Mauna Loa in the back ground....

Snow in Hawaii.. well I never  :o  ;D

We'll be having sunshine in London next  :P



Great shots