August 3rd, 2020
Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras

Sometime back, several of us got the opportunity to go flying with 1/228 Aviation Regiment. They have three companies. One flies Blackhawks for air evacuation. We work closely with their high-skilled critical care flight paramedics when evacuating patients by air. The second company flies Blackhawks for personnel transport and special missions. The third flies CH-47 Chinooks. We flew on a Chinook.

The Chinook is a huge twin-rotor helicopter that can provide heavy lift capability through sling loading things like, say, a Hummer.

Yes, that’s an HMMWV under that Chinook. It has the capacity to carry about forty troops in full combat gear. It is also, as we were to find out, very fast and very maneuverable.

They would harness us up and give us ramp time one at a time and I intentionally sat where I would be the last, thinking this might get me extra time. It did. We flew south toward Tegucigalpa, returned to land and swap pilots. Flew some more before swapping pilots again. On the last leg I got even more ramp time.

Aside from the thrill of the ride, it provided a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside, something we had not been able to see while restricted to post.

The last pilot to fly us was a very senior CW4 who has been flying Chinooks for fifteen years. He took us nearly nap of the earth up winding canyons because, as he later stated “I wanted to show you the old girl can fly. And she can.” I knew Chinooks were fast, but had no idea a big bird like that was so maneuverable. It was definitely a sporty ride.

Low and fast, shot from the ramp.

The last part was the wild ride.

More fun than I’ve had in a long time. Many thanks to the great flight crew from 1/228 AVN.