Hurlburt Field Memorial Air Park

Panduhh

Hi, some of you might recognize me from my brief appearance on the Arma 20th Anniversary stream.

While I am not old enough to have participated in the Vietnam War, I still live close to Hurlburt Field (AFSOC, 1st SOW and 24th SOW HQs) and spent 12 years maintaining the Special Operations aircraft (most of which did participate) stationed there.

Here is a link to information on the Air Park. I personally worked on the MC-130E (8th SOS), AC-130H (16th SOS), AC-130U (4th SOS) and MH-53 (20th SOS) aircraft when they were still in active service (1990s).

If there is sufficient interest, I could find more indepth info on these aircraft and the brave Air Commandos memorialized here.

Maarten

Awesome pictures [MENTION=260]Panduhh[/MENTION] thank you! Next up a full vlog? 😃

NightIntruder

The first time I've met MH53 was more than 15 years ago, during MILEX in an eastern European country. Two aircraft were landed at an unbelievably small soccer field. Those incredibly skilled pilots knew every inch of their aircraft by heart 🙂 Sadly, I don't know what squadron they were flying for but most likely from RAF Mildenhall. You brought good memories, sir.
Great pictures you've got there, thanks for sharing!

Panduhh

They would have been from the 21st SOS, part of the 352nd Special Operations Group. Their helicopters were stationed at Hurlburt Field for a while as the fleet was upgraded so I almost certainly worked on the aircraft you saw either at Hurlburt or deployed to Italy as both units (20th & 21st SOS) supported operations in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 90s.

Glad you liked the post.

NightIntruder

I just realized how my memory's playing tricks on me! Since the helo had 22m main rotor diameter and needed some spacing, certainly the soccer field couldn't be so "unbelievably small". It's a damn huge chopper, no wonder two of them at one place made the field so tiny in my memory 🙂 Yeah, it had to be that squadron.
I liked your post very much and quickly went through the information about Air Park you provided. I am impressed by the number and variety of aircraft types in this place. If I will visit the US someday, certainly the Air Park is a place to go for me. Cheers!