8000 Helicopters were shot down during the Vietnam Experience , 4000 of the 8000 were recovered and put back into Service ,:hide: the Crews were often not recoverable , I was on two of those that went down once on coming into the LZ once when pulling out of the LZ , this was the most vulnerable times . First time both pilots were seriously f--ked up , second time no one had any serious hurts .
8000
crazytanker
Active member
Are you sure about your facts? Best estimate I can find would only be 200 helicopters. In the ~5,000,000 sorties flown during the war, only two or three thousand aircraft were lost - during the entire war.
muscogeemike
Active member
I guarantee more than 200 choppers were lost, tetvets figures sound much more reasonable. 200 down means only 20 a year.
Side bar- one of our guys coming off night guard and instead of turning in his weapons was reported walking towards a large landing area with an M-60 and box of ammo. He was intercepted and, when questioned, said he just wanted to shoot down a helicopter. He assured us he would wait till the bird was just short of landing so nobody would be hurt!
I think he just wanted out but he never came back to the unit and I never heard what happened to him.
crazytanker
Active member
Like I said, I just did a quick google search and revealed that there were roughly 2,000 aircraft total lost.
crazytanker
Active member
Was it the same article I read? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War
290 bird dogs wow I didn't realize that many were downed , a dangerous job . I used to see them floating around riding the air currents , some were artillery some for fast movers .
www.vhpa.org/heliloss.pdf
www.vhpa.org/heliloss.pdf
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