The Museum helicopter, however, had a secret that makes it an extremely rare aircraft. During four tours of duty in Vietnam, the Museum’s Huey accumulated more than 2,500 combat hours, many of them spent transporting soldiers. During the war, some 5,000 of the helos buzzed about the country, transporting troops, evacuating the wounded, running reconnaissance missions, and-outfitted as gunships-shooting at the Viet Cong. It came and got us.” The enemy, in this case the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army, had reason to hate the Huey. “Everyone knew it, and the enemy hated it. “The Huey was the universal symbol for the Vietnam war,” says Cross, who served in the U.S. ![]() On this hot June day at the National Air and Space Museum’s Garber restoration facility in Suitland, Maryland, they had come to share what they knew about the helicopter’s history with fellow vet Michael Cross, the Garber restorer who would be responsible for refurbishing the craft. Army crew chiefs who flew aboard the Bell UH-1H Huey from 1967 to 1968 when they were stationed in Phu Loi. ![]() ![]() ![]() Two of the men, Jim Palmer and Van Ponder, were intimately familiar with the craft’s plain interior-corrugated aluminum floor, gray quilted-vinyl ceiling, and nylon seats. They moved slowly around it, talking and pointing. The three Vietnam vets gathered around the helicopter as it sat on the shop floor.
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