Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!cbnews!commgrp@silver.bacs.indiana.edu From: commgrp@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (BACS Data Communications Group) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Helicopter wires Message-ID: <5706@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 18 Apr 89 02:53:15 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 32 Approved: military@att.att.com From: BACS Data Communications Group A helicopter pilot who flies a Bell JetRanger for a coal company in eastern Kentucky told me that he doesn't fly below the ridges for fear of becoming entangled in open-wire television feedline. It looks like tiny rope-ladder for squirrels; miles of it are strung to mountaintop antennas, and across intervening valleys. Satellite dishes have made open-wire line obsolete but lots of it is still in place. Wire-cutter accessories are available for helicopters; a unicorn-like horn is attached to the top center of the cockpit, along with a reinforcing ridge along the centerline, and a shorter hornlike projection below. There is a V-shaped cutting blade at the base of each horn. I don't know how effective they are; I've seen them on civilian and military helicopters. I have heard of another hazard to low-flying helicopters in Vietnam: Claymore mines with pull-type fuzes or improvised pull-switches were mounted face-upward in trees along known helicopter routes. The trip- wires were attached to other trees or branches. When rotor downwash swayed the limbs, BOOM! I've also heard that some F-111's in Vietnam were lost because the enemy jammed their terrain-following radar. Either they crashed, or the autopilots flew them up into antiaircraft fire. -- Frank Reid W9MKV @ K9IU reidgold.bacs.indiana.edu {inuxc,rutgers,uunet!uiucdcs,pur-ee}!iuvax!silver!commgrp