Rotor Fest 2008

This all started when Mark sent me an email to this link http://helicoptermuseum.org/ and asked if Owen might enjoy going to the rotorfest this year. I don't think he was aware of our little guy's obsession with helicopters. His day care is at the hospital, so they see a lot of the life flight helicopters fly over on their way to the trauma center. Also, there is a reserve unit in Reading and we see a lot of helicopters fly over during the summer. Anyhow, it was on, so the Horvath's and the Rossney's made a day of it. The boys were in their glory.....

There were 3 or 4 helicopters giving rides around the area, so Owen hung out here for a while and watched them take-off and land. It was the first time he was able to be so close to a helicopter in action and he was frozen in place, taking it all in.

The museum is really nice. They have a great variety of stuff, and a whole area for kids to see how helicopters work. This was a little wind tunnel with a helicopter model on a tether. When they turned on the air, the rotors spun on the model, creating lift, which in turn caused it to "take off".

Here's the boys getting down to some serious business in a Rotorway Scorpion - Model 133. It was a homebuilt model that was introduced at OshKosh in 1967. The tail rotor is driven by a series of belts and frankly I thought it looked a little scary.

Owen & Jacob looking down the TOW missle mounts on a AH-1F Cobra.

The Navy used to have a drone R/C helicopter that would carry a torpedo out to a suspect location of an enemy sub. It was called the Gyrodyne Drone and the museum has a rotating model of one. With two drive rotors spinning in opposite direction, the torque of the system is cancelled so a tail rotor isn't required. It's a fairly complex mechanism and they have handles to control the tilt for each set. The boys.. I mean I enjoyed playing around with this.

Here are the US Army Black Daggers demonstrating a Combat Equipment Parachute Jump.

And their pilot doing a fly-by after the jump.

Here's Owen walking up the inside of a Navy Sea Knight.

What could be better than chowing down on some sugar coated dough, sitting under a helicopter?

The Army's version of the Sea Knight... the Chinook.

There were two Black Hawks that the North Carolina Army National Guard flew up for the show.

Strapped into the blackhawk.

You check under it and I'll look inside!