Known as the work horses of modern militaries, helicopters are an indispensable tool of war.
Whether ferrying equipment and troops around, scouting a battlefield, or raining death down
upon the enemy, helicopters have proven their worth time and time again.
Combining incredible agility, speed, and firepower, the modern combat helicopter is a weapon to
be feared.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show- today we're taking a look
at 50 incredible facts about combat helicopters, their culture, and history.
50.
Around the world combat helicopters are referred to as 'air cavalry' because they fulfill the
role of cavalry from bygone areas- agile, speedy scouts and quick-response fire support
just where its needed the most.
49.
In the US Army, helicopter pilots honor their cavalry heritage by being the only career
field in all the US military that is authorized to wear the old cavalry style hat as part
of their uniform.
48.
US Air Cavalry's special headwear is actually called the Cavalry stetson, named after John
B. Stetson, inventor of the world-famous cavalry hat.
47.
US Cavalry officers' stetsons are actually not authorized by standard uniform policy
by the US Army, but it is up to each individual unit commander to authorize their wear along
with boot spurs.
46.
In April 1st, 2011, as part of an April Fool's Day joke, the US Army released an official
statement that said all current headgear across the entire US Army would be replaced by the
stetson, and included photoshopped pictures of soldiers wearing the stetson and even a
military working dog wearing one.
(include photo fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry_Stetson#/media/File:OrderoftheSpurAprilfools2001.jpg)
45.
The two parts of the word helicopter are actually not “heli” and “copter”, but rather
“helico” meaning spiral and “pter” meaning one with wings.
44.
During the Vietnam War US Army officer Hugh Thompson prevented the deaths of hundreds
of Vietnamese civilians by placing his helicopter between the civilians and approaching US infantry,
threatening to open fire on the soldiers.
The event came to be known as the My Lai Massacre and ultimately saw between 300 and 500 civilians
dead and wounded at the hands of US soldiers.
43.
On a lighter note, In 1990 the Galapagos Conservancy launched Project Isabela, declaring all-out
war on 100,000 invasive goats in the Galapagos Islands which were driving Galapagos tortoises
extinct.
Their plan was to use snipers picking the goats off from helicopters, and it worked
to great effect.
42.
Australia's wedge-tailed eagle is so fiercely territorial and fearless that it will attack
helicopters and small planes to defend the skies around its nest.
41.
During the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somali between US/UN forces and Somali warlords,
helicopter pilot Michael Durant was taken hostage after his chopper was downed by enemy
RPG fire.
Knowing he had been captured, US Army helicopters flew over the city playing AC/DC's Hell's
Bells on external speakers.
It was Durant's favorite song, and after the song played it was followed by a voice saying
over a loudspeaker, “Mike, we won't leave here without you.”
He was freed 11 days later.
40.
In 1974 a US soldier stole a helicopter and flew to the White House, hovering over the
south grounds.
A Secret Service sniper shot and injured him, forcing him to land.
Ultimately he served one year in prison and earned a $2400 fine for his stunt.
39.
The Coast Guard once trained pigeons to help find people lost at sea.
They sat in a dome attached to the helicopter and pressed a lever after spotting life preservers
or debris.
In initial trials they had a stunning 90% success rate.
38.
In 1975 $10 million dollars worth of Huey helicopters had to be pushed off the flight
deck of the USS Midway and into the ocean to make room for an emergency landing of an
aircraft loaded with Vietnamese evacuees onboard.
37.
In 1986 United Way released 1.5 million balloons into the Cleveland sky to raise money for
charity.
The stunt choked the surrounding airspace with so many balloons that Coast Guard helicopters
couldn't reach an overturned fishing boat, resulting in two deaths.
36.
The bolt holding the rotor blades onto the helicopter's body is known as a Jesus nut-
it is the only single point of failure that would lead to a crash.
35.
In 2007 Iraqi insurgents used EXIF data from a picture taken of freshly arrived Apache
helicopters to find their exact coordinates and then launched a mortar attack on them,
destroying 4 choppers worth a total of $30 million.
34.
Helicopters are used in cherry farming to dry the cherries off with the rotor wash after
it rains so they don't soak in too much water and explode.
33.
The Mir Mine in Russia is so deep, helicopters can be sucked in by the downward air flow.
32.
The famous raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan was carried out by two formerly
secret and heavily modified 'stealth' Black Hawk helicopters with two Chinook backups.
Flying low and with classified stealth materials built into the hulls, the helicopters were
nearly impossible to detect on radar.
31.
The classified stealth and electronic countermeasures aboard the modified Black Hawk helicopters
added so much weight to each chopper that the additional weight of the US Seals who
boarded them and their equipment was calculated down to the ounce.
30.
The most famous helicopter raid in history, the Bin Laden raid was done without alerting
Pakistani authorities of the incursion for fear the Pakistanis would tip Osama Bin Laden
off.
For years the US had known that Pakistan had been playing both sides of the conflict, and
suspected they were secretly hiding Bin Laden.
29.
The two Chinook helicopters providing backup for the two main assault Black Hawks were
armed with 7.62mm miniguns and .50 caliber machine guns, along with an additional 24
US Navy SEALS.
They touched down 2/3rds of the way to the compound and were responsible for engaging
and destroying any Pakistani military units responding to the raid.
28.
One of the two Black Hawks which penetrated the compound experienced a hazardous airflow
condition known as a vortex ring state- the higher than expected air temperature along
with high compound walls stopped the rotor's downwash from diffusing, which compromised
the helicopter's ability to generate lift.
Its rear rotor grazed the compound wall and the helicopter crashed.
27.
The entire raid was over in 40 minutes, and the downed helicopter was packed with explosives
and destroyed to prevent the classified technology from falling into Pakistani hands.
26.
The Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to 1988 had the only confirmed air-to-air helicopter battles
in history.
25.
In 1986 a french woman taught herself how to fly a helicopter and then used a rented
helicopter to fly it over a prison and rescue her bank robber husband from the prison roof.
24.
In 1985 Philadelphia police dropped two bombs on a house from a helicopter during an armed
standoff.
The bombs started a fire that killed 11 and destroyed 60 homes.
23.
In 2009 a Japanese whaling fleet used a sonic weapon against a helicopter full of conservation
activists who were recording their whaling activities.
22.
The US has five times more helicopters than any other country in the world, and as many
heliports as every other country combined.
21.
Many anti-vehicle mines can be jerry-rigged to function as anti-helicopter mines.
The mines are concealed in very shallow dirt holes and have additional shrapnel which strikes
the helicopter's body and rotors.
20.
The Soviet built Ka-50 is one of the only helicopters in the world with an ejection
seat.
The rotor blades are blown away by explosives milliseconds before the ejection seat's rocket
ignites, preventing the pilot from literally becoming mincemeat.
19.
The Ka-50 also features a counter-rotating rotor underneath the main rotor which eliminates
the need for a tail rotor assembly.
18.
To confuse NATO spies, the Soviets painted false windows on the test models of the Ka-50
to make them think it was a multi-seat chopper and thus make it difficult to guess what its
primary mission was intended to be.
By all accounts the ploy worked.
17.
The Ka-50 proved it was one of the world's most formidable and maneuverable combat helicopters
in the difficult and mountainous terrain of Chechnya during the Second Chechen War.
16.
The latest deployment of the Ka-50 was during the Syrian Civil War, where they were spotted
providing escorts for search-and-rescue missions and supporting Russian special forces.
On 5th May 2018 one was shot down near Mayadin, some suspect by a US-provided MANPAD.
15.
The Daisy Cutter is a bomb specifically designed to create helicopter landing pads in thick
jungles.
The bomb's blast levels a circle 300 feet (91 meters) in diameter without affecting
much of the ground itself.
14.
In the late 1980s the Soviet Union provided extensive support for Libyan forces in their
conflict against Chad, including providing them with Mi-25 Hind attack helicopters.
13.
After a Libyan Mi-25 was abandoned by retreating Libyan forces, the US military carried out
a clandestine operation to secure and transport the helicopter, and all its classified technology,
to the US.
12.
In order to achieve their objectives, US military forces landed a C-5 Galaxy at N'Djamena International
Airport with two Chinook heavy-lift helicopters and 75 combat troops in its cargo hold.
The troops flew towards the abandoned Hind on the Chinooks, evading detection from Libyan
forces by flying low and fast.
11.
Despite sandstorms, the Chinooks reached the abandoned Hind before Libyan forces could
return to destroy it, and securing it to one of the Chinooks, flew it back to N'Djamena
International Airport where it was loaded onto another C-5 and transported directly
to the US.
10.
On August 18th, 1976, the US and South Korea sent a force of 800 men and 27 helicopters
to cut down a tree in the DMZ.
9.
Nicknamed Operation Paul Bunyan, the tree in question impeded line of sight from one
observation post in the US/South Korean side to the other.
Entering the Joint Security Area, a force of 11 US and South Korean personnel entered
to trim the tree.
North Korean guards initially watched them, and then claimed that the tree had been planted
by Kim Il Sung and was nourished and growing under his supervision.
Ignoring their commands to stop trimming the tree, the North Koreans attacked the group
and a brawl broke out, killing two Americans.
8.
In response President Gerald R. Ford sent a convoy of 23 American and South Korean combat
vehicles, two 30 man infantry platoons, a 64 man task force of South Korean special
forces, 20 US utility helicopters, 7 Cobra attack helicopters, several B-52 Stratofortress
heavy bombers, two squadrons of F-4 Phantom IIs, a squadron of South Korean F-5 and F-86
fighters, several US F-111 bombers, several infantry, artillery and air defense battalions
from both the US and South Korean militaries, and the aircraft carrier USS Midway's battlegroup.
The tree was cut down without incident.
7.
American intelligence analysts monitoring North Korean tactical radio nets reported
that the accumulation of military force “blew their minds”.
6.
In 2005 a man landed a helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest, and then to prove that he
didn't just get lucky the first time he did it again two days later.
5.
While developed for the US Army, the Apache attack helicopter is fully capable of operating
from aircraft carriers at sea.
4.
The first American female combat helicopter pilot was Gwen Schallow, who would go on to
implement new and advanced weapon systems after her experiences flying combat missions
in Bosnia.
3.
One of the most important tools in America's war on terror, Apache helicopters are widely
feared by ISIS forces for their ability to find and target even lone individuals in the
middle of the night with their advanced night vision and thermals.
2.
The battle of Karbala during the US's second invasion of Iraq was the most difficult battle
the Apache attack helicopter has ever faced.
A force of 31 Apaches was tasked with crippling the Messina Division of the Iraqi Republican
Guard, but flew into a planned ambush in a built-up residential area.
Despite this, the Apaches suffered only a single loss and completed their mission objectives.
Heavily damaged but victorious, all but one Apache made its way back home- with one pilot
having being wounded and bleeding out yet still managing to safely land his chopper
at home base.
1.
The US's Apache is the most successful attack helicopter in history, with over 2000 having
been built in its lifetime- more than almost any other military aircraft in the world.
Do you think there are any facts on the list we missed?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called 50 insane facts about cold war!
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