When I was flying low level & doing nap of the earth iterations, our worst nightmare was a wire strike. Even a small power line could foul the main rotors & bring it down chop-chop. Harder to spot than the big wires.
And much less than a .50 cal can destroy a tail rotor gearbox or make it run dry & then seize.
HVAC guy was here yesterday. His Dad flew Cobras in VN & had two shot down. I flew Hueys and was more fortunate.
Helicopters have always been vulnerable to small arms fire especially in slow flight.
My understanding from a flippy wing pilot is while flying at night with NVGs, power lines show as glowing lines in the dark, UNLESS the power to them has been cut. Then they are invisible.
HVAC guy was here yesterday. His Dad flew Cobras in VN & had two shot down. I flew Hueys and was more fortunate.
Helicopters have always been vulnerable to small arms fire especially in slow flight.
A close friend of mine shot down his own Huey, while he was in it!
I was on the first operational flight of a brand new Huey. About 40 feet off the ground, the main rotor and gearbox locked up. It didn’t fly very well after that. A wild ride.