I bet you're getting tired of hearing from me.

I bet you're getting tired of hearing from me. But I did do some work on a CH-46. That was the previous medium lift helo for the Marines (and the Navy until they retired the type in 2004). So one CH-46 got shot down in Iraq by a MANPAD. Here is the video from the persons who did it http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=efb_1196612143 So there's a clear vulnerability there. Various attempts to address this met with mixed results. Here is one aircraft so modified https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5603/15563054829_09753417c0_b.... It's sitting in a museum this way, so this stuff (which is not at all old) clearly didn't work. Plus it was getting difficult to keep the things in the air...the youngest CH-46s were made in the early 1970s, but most dated from 1965-68. So, 40+ years old. There are even documented cases where a father and son (and even one father/daughter pair) flew the exact same CH-46 into combat, 4 decades apart. The 46 is slow. You might push it up to 120 knots. And it was made in the era before digital avionics. The 46-E standard at least gave the aircraft a digital flight computer (not flight controls , but avionics control and some decent comms), but even that is now ancient and antiquated. That's the basic answer about the 46 -- good at its creation, one hell of an airframe, lasted longer than it should have by all rights, but it is just time to say goodbye. As I said elsewhere, August 1 (today, now!) marks the final flight of HMM-774's last CH-46 to the Udvar-Hazy center in Dulles, VA, where the type will be officially retired. HMM-774 then officially becomes VMM-774 flying the V-22, and the conversion is complete.

Posted by engi_nerd on Aug 1, 2015, 5:32 AM

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• reliability (Other)

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