Crew Chief Question

I was reading yet another book on Huey Helicopter Pilots in the Vietnam war and Pilots almost always mention the Crew Chief and his role. How he would be prepping the aircraft for the next days flight or even checking on it when in a temporary location for a few hours.

Just curious where would one find information on what the crew chief was doing to the Huey. I'm fascinated to know... and I'm wondering if their was a standard crew chief checklist/manual something or other they used to make sure they did everything they were suppose to.

Anyone know where info like that might be found or is that just too much info and not available?

the helicopter belongs to the crew chief, or the crew chief belongs to the helicopter :)

pilots fly the helicopter they are assigned for a mission. so don't have any real connection to specific birds.

that is the crew chiefs job.

to look after and maintain a bird he is going to constantly be a passenger in..

gives them incentive to keep up with maintenance :)

its the crew chiefs job to make sure everything in the helicopter is working for whichever pilots are assigned for that mission.

so basic checking of coolant and lubricant levels. and keeping track of the hours done by time sensitive parts.. calls for servicing.

loading of cargo,fuel and weapons.

he has the log book for the aircraft and its his responsibility.

some crew chiefs did "illegal" engine mods..

the crew chiefs were all pilot school drop outs.

so they can fly the bird in a pinch.. the pilots seats pivot backwards so the crew chief can take his place if he is a casualty. don't know if this ever happened.

and they also look over the pilots shoulders in flight keeping an eye on the engine dials..

so if you cook the turbines the crew chief may have something to say when you land..

every time i push the exhaust gas temp i imagine the crew chief wincing in the back :)

makes up for no thermal model.. i feel guilty :)

and finally they man a gun for combat..

so a "good" helicopter has a "good" crew chief, why the pilots mention them so much.. they are important :)

i cant think of any specific books about crew chiefs, so if anyone knows of any i would be interested to know too.

It is certainly not true that crew Chiefs were all pilot school drop outs. That's ridiculous information. Otherwise some good info.

Check this link:

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED119024.pdf

I am retired from 25 years in the army. I was not a Helicopter crewman, but many many hours flying in helicopters all over the world on numerous operations, including as a Master parachutist (jumpmaster). My brother-in-law just retired last month from 25 years in the Army as a Helicopter mechanic/crewchief/maintenance supervisor, and two of the guys I fly with in DCS..best friends, are current helicopter pilots (including one ex UH1 pilot). So from my observation of crew chiefs and to augment whats been said above I'll pitch in the following. (And by the way what I am saying likely goes for every flying machine as well)

The Huey like any other piece of military equipment, had at the time a number of levels of maintenance, this was known as -10 (unit) -20 (direct Support) -30 (General Support) -40 (depot). The army today has consolidated this into two levels of maintenance. Crew chiefs would be responsible for -10 maintenance and seeing their birds up to -20 or above when necessary.

In the field on a mission:

First off, the fact that the helicopter even works, is fueled and armed, and is ready to go flying is completely the responsibility of the crew chief. The crew chief owns the aircraft, and oversees anything done to the bird by other sections of the maintenance team (Avionics power plant etc). He maintains the critical -10 logbook that has the record of everything the helicopter ever did or had done to it. Without this logbook present, the helicopter is Not going anywhere regardless of the situation.

During the mission briefing the crew chief receives the mission and configures the helicopter for the mission. Ensure serviceability per the manual checklists. Mount the appropriate armament. Remove doors or Seats, add a winch, or sling loading equipment, etc etc. He does that himself or supervises the guys that are doing it, checking all the work done to makes sure everything is operational and safe. Even little touches like ensure that there extra water, rations, ammo, toilet paper, whatever. HE makes sure the windows are clean. He preflights the bird. If a pilot comes out to preflight the bird, and finds something wrong it is literally the crew chiefs ass.

When troops or supplies are loaded, he oversees this, ensuring proper CG and avoiding dangerous overloaded conditions. He makes sure that Joe Snuffy is not doing something unsafe in the back of the AC such as fingering f**king his trigger or has his rifle off safe. He communicates with the pilot when everything is set for take off.

In the air the crew chief is another set of eyes and calls out aerial contacts, direction and distance to the crew so there are no midair collisions. They help navigate. They pass info on to the passengers including the jumpmaster if its an airborne operation. They also man the door guns if they are on.

They look out for obstacles on landing especially in directions the pilot cant see like below the airframe and the tail rotor. Upon landing they ensure the load gets out, supplies or personnel. they inspect new personnel coming in to ensure everything is safe..".hey you what the f are you doing with a grenade attached to your vest by a pin, get off my bird!" etc.

If the aircraft lands at a FARP, the crew chief gets out, ensure everything is safe and oversees refueling or other rearmament. Its his plane, no one does anything to it unless he says they can. If the bird shuts down he does the after flight check list, which depending on length of stay may include tieing down the ac rotors, covering intakes etc. He gets the manual out and conducts PMCS (Preventive maintenance checks and services ) on the bird to ensure it ready to take off again when the word comes down. He recleans the windscreen After all this is done, then the can grab something to eat. By this time, the pilots have long ago gone somewhere to chill out while he is still working.

If there is any problem with the helicopter, he determines what it is, and fixes it if he can, if not he contacts company maintenance to coordinate to have tools or the maintenance bird sent out to fix it. He coordinates the recovery of his damaged aircraft it can be recovered.

If they decide to pull off the crew and are going to fix the bird later in the day, he stays with the bird even if the pilots are sent back to base on another helo.

This is what I have observed crew chiefs doing in my 25 years. Its what crew chiefs have told me they do, and it is what I have read that they do (Honestly read Chicken Hawk!)

The crew chief knows all the quirks of his bird. I witnessed this scene once on an AC130. We were doing training with them and half our team stayed on the ground to practice calling in strikes while the other half got a rare treat to ride in the bird. The relevant bit to this thread:

The pilots were having a hard time starting the bird, this one was at the time AC130a and the oldest gunship in the air force. They couldn't get one of the engines started, it kept on "fogging" which is laymans terms I think is something akin to flooding. When this happens you have to shut down and wait x amount of minutes before retrying. If it happens again you have to wait double the time to try again, if it happens three time you are not going flying that day.

The senior crew chief was not on the AC at the time he had given up his slot to make room for us, and there was an air show starting that weekend so planes were starting to come in and he was hanging out at the airfield. The crewchief was a gruff and barrel chester senior NCO, maybe 25 years experience, and he was quite annoyed at the pilots...giving his opinion over the intercom on what they were doing wrong. He finally told them on the last attempt to jiggle a certain throttle a certain way . They followed his direction exactly and the engine finally started. He then proceeded back to the NCO club for a beer with some old friends while we went flying. That's the level of knowledge a crew chief has for his aircraft...all the little quirks!

None of this is stuff a DCS pilot has to worry about, but without it, there is no flying.

Los

Thanks everyone for the info.

Quadg thank you for the dry run through.

Los you cracked me up with some of your explanations...

".hey you what the f are you doing with a grenade attached to your vest by a pin, get off my bird!"

And very thorough. So thank you. :)

Pluie thanks for the link I will comb through it.

Los, good stuff mate!!

A couple of other points...

Any repairs that are going to effect safety of flight will be checked and signed off by a QA inspection after the Crew Chief and any other needed maintainers do the work.

Firing the MG the Crew Chief could express his displeasure with the pilots by directing the ejected brass down the back of your neck.

Pilots and Crew Chief worked together as a team to support the mission. There was always a mutual respect and when you worked with the same crew for a while that teams performance went way up.

Oh and if I got into a helo and the windscreen looked like the one in the Gazelle here, there would be some harsh words with the Crew Chief. Respectfully of course

It is certainly not true that crew Chiefs were all pilot school drop outs. That's ridiculous information. Otherwise some good info.

This. No idea where you'd get that from. Crew Chiefs are maintainers, they are not flight school drop outs. They didn't go to flight school. They don't just check fluid levels. They perform the maintenance on the engine and airframe. They are the equivalent of a civilian A&P. In flight crew chiefs act as a door gunner.

If you read up thread its a snippet of info QUADG was putting out that I was refutuing.

Los

I was an AH-64A crew chief for 6 years and have been an Mi-17 crew chief for the last 10 years. What I will add to the conversation is that yes, there is a checklist that we follow for "daily" inspections. After a while with the same aircraft you start to know what things need more attention than others. When I was in the Army, I was assigned to a particular Apache and if anyone wanted to know the status of the aircraft, they came to me. I was responsible for the logbook and keeping all the paperwork in order as well as performing maintenance on the aircraft. Of course, I also helped the other crew chiefs with their maintenance as necessary.