Recently in Helicopters Category

Now this is nice. Posted on our AirSpace forum is this little gem from Croatian snapper Boran Pivčić. He writes: "By far the most impressive visitor to our little airfield - Lucko (LDZL), Zagreb, Croatia - is seen hover taxiing to the helicopter start gates for a night mission behind callsign Crazy 21. An impressive piece of kit - this extremely rare special operations machine and its sister ship 08-03775 - both part of the US Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment - are in town to participate in the annual Jackal Stone 12 NATO exercise."

Boran Pivčić on flightglobal/AirSpace

Taken from the US Air Force site is this cracking picture of too many aircraft all trying to occupy the same space. It was shot at the 2012 Kaneohe Bay Air Show on Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii last month and shows a US Air Force Lockheed Martin C-130, a pair of Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallions, a Bell AH-1 Cobra and a Bell UH-1. Phew, did I forget anything?

US Air Force

A couple of images from this year's UK Army photographic competition caught our eye. The overall winner, taken by Sgt Mark Nesbit, shows British soldiers climbing on board a Boeing CH-47 Chinook at the end of a joint mission with the Afghan army.

Sgt Mark Nesbit/MoD/Rex Features

A runner-up, shot by Cpl Wes Calder, also features an aviation element, showing soldiers from a reconnaissance force protecting themselves from the rotorwash of a US Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion in Afghanistan.

Cpl Wes Calder/MoD/Rex Features

Pictured is a rescue drill conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Transport and Shanghai Municipal Government using a mock-up of a ditched narrowbody airliner. The emergency services attempted to rescue 140 passengers and 10 crew members on board without any getting wet. Or drowned. Also pictured is a Eurocopter EC225 belonging to the China Rescue & Salvage Department.

Rex Features

...lies this quietly mouldering Bell 212 formerly (possibly still with) the Norwegian air force. Snapped by user Tall_Dutch on Flightglobal's AirSpace forum at Oslo airport, the airframe has been lovingly preserved left to slowly rot. The peeling paint around the window frames is particularly lovely.

Credit: User Tall_Dutch on flightglobal/AirSpace

This, from the MoD, is one of those photographs that if you stare at it for long enough it looks increasingly as though the helicopter has been cut from another image and dropped on an unsuspecting background. That said, it's still rather lovely and shows a RAF AgustaWestland Merlin helicopter on exercise Pashtung Vortex in Jordan prior to deployment in Afghanistan.

Credit: Crown Copyright

Around 2,400 personnel from the Japan Ground Self-Defence Force were involved in a live-fire exercise staged near Mount Fuji earlier this month.

This spectacular image shows two of the service's Boeing/Fuji Heavy Industries AH-64DJ Apache attack helicopters in action, with pyrotechnics supplied by the land vehicles.
Flightglobal's HeliCAS database records Japan's army as having only 10 Apaches.

Great picture from the US Army's flickr stream showing a Sikorsky UH-60 flown by the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade landing as paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division secure the area in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan.

Credit: US Army

This pic from the Canadian Department of National Defence shows members of the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry from Shilo, Manitoba and 1st Battalion, 3rd US Marines, performing fast rope exercises using a Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. It took place earlier this month as part of joint exercise RIMPAC, which included 1,400 Canadian personnel as well as forces from Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Credit: Canadian Department of National Defence

Pictured on the US Navy website is this cracking shot of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln transiting the Suez Canal, complete with a pair of Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets and Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk on deck.

Credit: US Navy