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Description
| Notes: Transport with one main rotor. And 4-BLADE tail rotor. | ||
| Manufacturer: | Kaman | |
| Base model: | H-2 | |
| Designation: | UH-2 | |
| Version: | C | |
| Nickname: | SEASPRITE | |
| Designation System: | U.S. Tri-Service | |
| Designation Period: | 1962-Present | |
| Basic role: | Helicopter | |
| Modified Mission: | Utility | |
| See Also: | ||
Specifications
Propulsion
Performance
Recent comments by our visitors
| don danielson walla walla, WA | I flew the UH-2C with HC-1 det 31 off of the USS BonHomme Richard in 69 and 70. I found it to be a nice flying helicopter when it was maintained well. It was an overly complicated airframe and was hard to maintain. We had our share of crashes with it, one on our first deployment (Bill Bently and John Lovell) with no fatalities. Fatal crashes were at Imperial Beach (cargo door flew up into rotor system), and another that had a rotor brake rotor separate and severed a main rotor blade. Other crashes involved "rusty" pilots flying at night after we had been grounded for long periods of time. All in all, I didn't hate it like some of the others did. Our squadron transitioned to the SH3G while I was there and I flew it for two deployments. The Sea King was more reliable, but I always have had a soft spot for the "hukey tuk" since it was my first fleet aircraft out of flight school. I went on to amass 18,000 helicopter hours all over the world. I was a navy LT, and retired from the Army Reserve as a CW3. I am now retired from Rowan Drilling and live in Walla Walla, wa. 09/09/2008 @ 12:26 [ref: 22644] |
| don danielson walla walla, WA | I flew the UH-2C with HC-1 det 31 off of the USS BonHomme Richard in 69 and 70. I found it to be a nice flying helicopter when it was maintained well. It was an overly complicated airframe and was hard to maintain. We had our share of crashes with it, one on our first deployment (Bill Bently and John Lovell) with no fatalities. Fatal crashes were at Imperial Beach (cargo door flew up into rotor system), and another that had a rotor brake rotor separate and severed a main rotor blade. Other crashes involved "rusty" pilots flying at night after we had been grounded for long periods of time. All in all, I didn't hate it like some of the others did. Our squadron transitioned to the SH3G while I was there and I flew it for two deployments. The Sea King was more reliable, but I always have had a soft spot for the "hukey tuk" since it was my first fleet aircraft out of flight school. I went on to amass 18,000 helicopter hours all over the world. I was a navy LT, and retired from the Army Reserve as a CW3. I am now retired from Rowan Drilling and live in Walla Walla, wa. 09/09/2008 @ 12:25 [ref: 22643] |
| Roger Ek Lee, ME | I flew the UH-2B and UH-2C off and on from 1963 to 1972. It was smooth in flight when well maintained and a very suitable helicopter for the mission. However, in 1970 it developed the nasty habit of going inverted and crashing when slowing to a hover. Usually the entire crew died because this always happened at sea. One of these had a witness. An A-4 pilot was in a life raft off Vietnam when an H-2 rolled inverted and crashed right in front of him as he was about to be rescued.
When the second H-2 arrived on scene and the rescue crewman jumped into the water with the A-4 pilot, the pilot in the raft politely told the crewman he would just as soon stay in the raft. He finally did agree to be hoisted into the H-2. In 1971 I was walking across the hangar at Pensacola. There was a UH-2C on jacks. The landing gear was up and the helicopter was being powered by a hydraulic Jenny. I yelled for the maintenance man to stop and not to touch anything until I got back with a camera. The mechanic was operating the hoist. When he hit the Down switch the hoist unwound cable, but the weight on the end of the cable did not go down. loose cable looped onto the transmission deck and could entangle the spinning flight controls at the base of the transmission. I found the reason the H-2s were crashing. It was corrosion that bound up the hoist pulley at the end of the hoist arm. I don't know how many died before somebody got lucky enough to catch that. 04/22/2008 @ 16:43 [ref: 20682] |
| Barry Sinclair escondido, CA | I have to revise my last post....the pics I have are of the last HH-2D in the Navy (BUNO 9031) from HSL-31 Det Bravo... which is now in an Aeronautical museum. Brings back great memories of the SHAKA crew and the stops in Australia, Singapore & Indonesia during my deployment in 1987 & 1988. It was a different world from my life here in San Diego. Shout out to all the guys I sailed with: Steve Meyer...whom I just recently contacted......fellow electrician Pete Hadley, roommate Dan Noyes, pilot Chris Denz, pilot Brendan Ahearn....who nearly kicked my a$$ a couple times. Those days on the USNS Harkness will always be with me in memories & photos. 12/11/2007 @ 10:35 [ref: 18882] |
| Barry Sinclair escondido, CA | I have to revise my last post....the pics I have are of the last HH-2D in the Navy (BUNO 9031) from HSL-31 Det Bravo... which is now in an Aeronautical museum. Brings back great memories of the SHAKA crew and the stops in Australia, Singapore & Indonesia. It was a different world from my life here in San Diego. Shout out to all the guys I sailed with: Steve Meyer...whom I just recently contacted......fellow electrician Pete Hadley, roommate Dan Noyes, pilot Chris Denz, pilot Brendan Ahearn....who nearly kicked my a$$ a couple times. Those days on the USNS Harkness will always be with me in memories & photos. 12/11/2007 @ 10:34 [ref: 18881] |
| don mathis, TX | I had been in the H3 det that Cdr Manley was referring and could enlighten him on what brought on those maintenace problems but wont do so in public.
Had one tour with the UH 2A/B's (see posts on the UH 2 A page) and always thought the one engine was on there for maybe heating only and there was a large rubber band between the blade tract switches and the main rotor as I neever met a pilot that would let the automatic system work, as soon as we picked up in a hover they had their busy little fingers going,,,, you steer,,,i'll tract was the norm. But i actually did like the old "hookie-tuk" except for the limited space for us crewmen. 03/06/2007 @ 01:53 [ref: 15781] |
| Joe DiCarlo Atlanta, GA | I flew the UH-2Cs at NAF Naples in the early 1970s. They were used for SAR and NATO VIP transport. I hated every minute of it.
They were maintenance nightmares, and easily earned the "built-by-the-lowest- bidder" epithet. Typical in-flight pilot-pilot-crew comments were: "What was that?" "Do you hear that noise?" "Do you feel that vibration?" It wasn't unusual for the vibrations from rotor system, which were transmitted to the rudder pedals, to numb your feet on long flights. That was how we knew that maintenance was overdue on the rotor. One of them had a nasty tendency to abruptly point nose-down whenever the SAS was turned off. To the consternation of our OPS officer, I refused to fly that one ever again. Luckily for me we soon transitioned to HH-46As, and the UH-2Cs were sent off to be reworked for the LAMPS program for some other poor SOBs to contend with. 05/31/2006 @ 10:03 [ref: 13418] |
| John Manly, CDR/USN (Ret) , ME | The times they were 'a-changin'. During my first WESTPAC deployment with HSL-37 Det 4 in '76-'77, I remember us having to provide plane guard from the "Bubba" Brewton
(FF-1086) for the "Mudwife" (USS Midway) because the H-3 Det aboard had severe maintenance problems and could not get any of it's SIX aircraft up. History will show that Charlie Kaman got it right. The circle goes 'round and 'round. I now volunteer as a snowboard instructor for the handicapped. One of my supervisors in that position built the Hookey-Took at Bloomfield. He uses his composite structure construction skills to build incredible wood laminate skis and snowboards. It truly is a Small, Small, World, and I feel lucky to have been a very small player in the NAVAIR part of it. 03/21/2006 @ 18:41 [ref: 12883] |
| Barry Sinclair San Diego, CA | I have many photos of the Kaman UH-2C (serial number 9031) from my days aboard the USNS Harkness 1987-1988.....going through flight ops. I would like to post them if anyone is interested. 12/09/2004 @ 19:21 [ref: 8830] |
| Steve Caple , CA | Nobody except PR officers and the unbelievably prissy called them 'Seasprites'. The Navy version of these ill-begotten aircraft were called "Hukey Tukes".
They were not very good as North SAR rescue birds due to low power (and a rumored tendency of the quadrons's flying them to carry more guns, spare barrels, and ammo than our squadron carried in its larger SH-3s). The addition of a second turbine engine overstressed the main gear boxes and led to our HS squadron going on a lot of extra detachments to fly angel and plane guard on all the CVAs that had their Hukey Tukes down. The flap-in-rotor control system always seemed incredibly finicky and non-robust to me. I heard a rumor from an ex-Pax River test pilot that the bird was given a passing evaluation only after a congressman in Kaman's district complained and the brass dutifully passed the s--t downhill. 10/06/2002 @ 16:08 [ref: 5829] |
