FRIDAY FOTO (November 4, 2022)

Rocky Mountain High.

(U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sergeant 1st Class Zach Sheely) Click on photo to enlarge the image.

An LUH-72 Lakota helicopter flies above mountainous terrain near Gypsum, Colorado on October 16, 2022. Gypsum is home of the Colorado National Guard’s High-altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site, or HAATS.

Run by full-time Colorado Army National Guard pilots, HAATS caters to rotory-wing military pilots from all over the world, including Slovenia, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the Republic of Georgia.

During the week-long course, pilots spend one day training in the classroom — learning the intricacies of power management in high-altitude mountainous terrain. On the other four days, they fly in and around the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains, at altitudes ranging from 6,500 feet at the airport to 14,000 feet.

“They teach hoist operations, how to land in small areas, how to operate at altitude, and how to take advantage of the winds and terrain to get more performance out of your helicopter than you might normally be able to,” said Army General Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, during a recent visit to the school. Hokanson is also the Army Guard’s senior aviator.

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November being National American Indian Heritage Month, it’s worth noting that since the late 1940s, many U.S. Army helicopter models have been named for Native American tribes or nations. They range from the very large Boeing CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift transport helicopter to the smaller Bell OH-58 Kiowa armed reconnaissance helicopter.

Other helos carrying Native American names include the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse light observation/utility helicopter and the  Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk medium-lift utility helicopter, named for a Sauk war leader who resisted the forced removal of Midwest Indian tribes to lands across the Mississippi River.

Even the venerable Bell UH-1 utility chopper of Vietnam War fame — nicknamed the “Huey” because its original Army designation was HU-1 — was officially known as the Iroquois.