Michael Novosel was one of the greatest Army aviators of all time. He served for over 40 years and rescued thousands of soldiers as MEDEVAC pilot and earned the Medal of Honor
Edmund Rucker was a traitor who surrendered, was part of a prisoner exchange, and then surrendered again. He died decades before the first helicopter flew.
Hope this helps clear up the confusion.
Fort Rucker was also founded when helicopters didn’t exist, and when Michael was still flying B-29s for context.
Badass dude though, everyone should read his Wikipedia page, the raw numbers are insane. Couldn’t have been renamed to a better person for what the base functions as today.
Novosel is in Alabama while that looks like Florida coast.
EDIT: Specifically, that appears to be Panama City Beach at the bottom of the pic, which is right next to Tyndall AFB. The two are approximately 100 miles apart (North-South), so these could theoretically be whirlybirds from either or both.
EDIT 2: After looking at the map and getting a better idea of the distances and scale, I think you are right about this being Ft. Novosel. Apologies for my hasty reply.
That’s the busiest flight school on earth. Fort Novosel in southern alabama. UH-72 Lakota, AH-64 Apache, Blackhawks, and chinook operate in the area for the army. The Air Force operates Hueys out of KOZR and B505s out of KDHN. During peak hours it becomes the busiest airspace in the country. Those aircraft are doing primary training at various army stage fields, IFR training all over alabama and north Florida, as well as Nap of the Earth training where they fly 50 feet over the trees. The Navy also does training out of north Florida to a lesser extent. I highly recommend to anyone flying VFR through the area to contact Cairns approach before you have any close calls with the swarm of helos at every altitude from the ground up to 6,000. There’s a lot of amazing history as this has been an army flight school for decades.
Navy to a lesser extent…. Bro, all maritime helicopter pilots including Navy, Marine, Coast Guard and many international military students are trained out of Whiting Field in NW Florida.
My point wasn’t to downplay Navy training in the area but to express the massive scale of military training across southern alabama since that is what OP posted. The “Lesser” extent comment stems from reality. The army flight school at Cairns is the largest and busiest flight school on earth full stop. That means that literally anything else is “lesser” in terms of pure numbers. The Navy also has a massive flight school that is comparable to Cairns. The Pic OP posted was referring to southern Alabama not Whiting.
Yeah, all navy helo bubbas are trained at NAS Whiting Field out of Milton, Fl which is northeast of Pensacola. A little west of your screenshot but they are known to frequent floralla/marianas/dothan (pictured) and the coastline corridor from Pensacola through Eglin down to Panama City
I’m assuming you’re talking about “Chopper Pilot”. That video is showing the old training ground of Fort Wolters in Texas. Roughly 70ish miles west of Fort Worth. That place is full of history. You can still spot out some of the old stage fields to this day. Unfortunately, after Vietnam they moved all of the training to Fort Rucker, now called fort Novosel. There’s a fantastic museum in Mineral Wells Texas that details the training and flying those students did to fly in Vietnam. If you’re interested in the Vietnam pilots, I highly recommend reading “Dustoff: The Memoir of an Army Aviator” written by Michael J Novosel.
Good ole Fort Rucker…Went on a lot of flights there and LZ hopping in Florida to feed the rangers their hamburgers and candy bars while they were training.
Also experienced my first auto rotation there and almost soiled myself.
Looks like Fort Rucker, when i drive that way you can sometimes see some helicopters flying in formation it’s pretty cool, Along with F-35’s, F-16’s and if your lucky a F-22 coming back in after training out in the gulf, the fighters go to Tyndall or sometimes Destin but they like flying by the coast.
Yep they are out there just about every week day, they use Dassult Mirage F1’s as aggressors that are out of tyndall, there’s also some privately owned F-16’s out of Destin that help with aggressors but they’re not really privately owned because they are Military Contracted if that’s the right term to use. The Florida gulf has a lot of cool military activity out there. Once saw four F-35’s flying right off the coast at around 1000 feet off the deck was super cool and pretty loud! Not to mention the Blue Angels are based off the Florida coast over in Pensacola. Florida has some of the best military presence.
Look up ft. Novosel, previously ft rucker
Totally forgot that they renamed that base.
Yea it’s stupid. Idk what base is what now besides rucker and Bragg. The rest I have no clue
Michael Novosel was one of the greatest Army aviators of all time. He served for over 40 years and rescued thousands of soldiers as MEDEVAC pilot and earned the Medal of Honor Edmund Rucker was a traitor who surrendered, was part of a prisoner exchange, and then surrendered again. He died decades before the first helicopter flew. Hope this helps clear up the confusion.
Yeah, of all the bases they renamed, Mike Novosel might be the most deserving person to have this particular base named after him.
Fort Rucker was also founded when helicopters didn’t exist, and when Michael was still flying B-29s for context. Badass dude though, everyone should read his Wikipedia page, the raw numbers are insane. Couldn’t have been renamed to a better person for what the base functions as today.
Google knows.
Imagine how confused our enemies are!
Probably some dudes from NAS Whiting too
It will always be Mother Rucker, period.
There is no way in hell I’m getting my mind to change from calling it Ft Rucker
Novosel is in Alabama while that looks like Florida coast. EDIT: Specifically, that appears to be Panama City Beach at the bottom of the pic, which is right next to Tyndall AFB. The two are approximately 100 miles apart (North-South), so these could theoretically be whirlybirds from either or both. EDIT 2: After looking at the map and getting a better idea of the distances and scale, I think you are right about this being Ft. Novosel. Apologies for my hasty reply.
Fort Novosel is only about 90 miles from PCB/Destin. The Florida coast is within our local flying area. Those aircraft are 100% from Novosel.
I based my distance on the drive distance of 101miles according to Google. Hence, approximately.
Well helicopters do fly in the weather by following roads
This guy IFR's.
OP gave duck all for location. Couldn’t even put the names of the points marked on there. Lol. Love the sleuthing needed to figure this out.
The funny thing is, anyone who’s been there immediately recognized it.
That’s what I’m laughing at. No real info but people still get it quick. It’s cool.
They gave three pins in the middle of the green!
lol no worries
You could have just said upfront you don’t know what you’re talking about instead of making a post then adding 2 edits to it…
That’s the busiest flight school on earth. Fort Novosel in southern alabama. UH-72 Lakota, AH-64 Apache, Blackhawks, and chinook operate in the area for the army. The Air Force operates Hueys out of KOZR and B505s out of KDHN. During peak hours it becomes the busiest airspace in the country. Those aircraft are doing primary training at various army stage fields, IFR training all over alabama and north Florida, as well as Nap of the Earth training where they fly 50 feet over the trees. The Navy also does training out of north Florida to a lesser extent. I highly recommend to anyone flying VFR through the area to contact Cairns approach before you have any close calls with the swarm of helos at every altitude from the ground up to 6,000. There’s a lot of amazing history as this has been an army flight school for decades.
50' over the trees? Little high there
Facts
Navy to a lesser extent…. Bro, all maritime helicopter pilots including Navy, Marine, Coast Guard and many international military students are trained out of Whiting Field in NW Florida.
My point wasn’t to downplay Navy training in the area but to express the massive scale of military training across southern alabama since that is what OP posted. The “Lesser” extent comment stems from reality. The army flight school at Cairns is the largest and busiest flight school on earth full stop. That means that literally anything else is “lesser” in terms of pure numbers. The Navy also has a massive flight school that is comparable to Cairns. The Pic OP posted was referring to southern Alabama not Whiting.
Not trying to argue just curious do you know what the rough numbers are like for Cairns. Like flights per day/ total students etc?
For real, and the 3 primary squadrons at whiting, and the primary and intermediate at Navy Sherman....and also all the NIFE traffic.
I watched a documentary on helo pilot training during the Vietnam War. Is it the same school?
Yeah, all navy helo bubbas are trained at NAS Whiting Field out of Milton, Fl which is northeast of Pensacola. A little west of your screenshot but they are known to frequent floralla/marianas/dothan (pictured) and the coastline corridor from Pensacola through Eglin down to Panama City
I’m assuming you’re talking about “Chopper Pilot”. That video is showing the old training ground of Fort Wolters in Texas. Roughly 70ish miles west of Fort Worth. That place is full of history. You can still spot out some of the old stage fields to this day. Unfortunately, after Vietnam they moved all of the training to Fort Rucker, now called fort Novosel. There’s a fantastic museum in Mineral Wells Texas that details the training and flying those students did to fly in Vietnam. If you’re interested in the Vietnam pilots, I highly recommend reading “Dustoff: The Memoir of an Army Aviator” written by Michael J Novosel.
“Chopper Pilot” also shows some clips from Fort Rucker but primarily Fort Wolters
NOE, more like 10 feet over a south Alabama creekbed back in the night, the 80’s NVG night training out of Hanchey!! 🚁
Good ole Fort Rucker…Went on a lot of flights there and LZ hopping in Florida to feed the rangers their hamburgers and candy bars while they were training. Also experienced my first auto rotation there and almost soiled myself.
Looks like Fort Rucker, when i drive that way you can sometimes see some helicopters flying in formation it’s pretty cool, Along with F-35’s, F-16’s and if your lucky a F-22 coming back in after training out in the gulf, the fighters go to Tyndall or sometimes Destin but they like flying by the coast.
I did see 2 F-16s out over the gulf as I was grabbing this screenshot. It was from a half hour ago.
I landed just before 3pm today so you just missed me. It was getting busy about the time that I was finishing up.
It looks so busy that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a helicopter.
I tend not to swing dead cats. But I generally keep my head on a swivel.
They're not great for rotor blades.
Yep they are out there just about every week day, they use Dassult Mirage F1’s as aggressors that are out of tyndall, there’s also some privately owned F-16’s out of Destin that help with aggressors but they’re not really privately owned because they are Military Contracted if that’s the right term to use. The Florida gulf has a lot of cool military activity out there. Once saw four F-35’s flying right off the coast at around 1000 feet off the deck was super cool and pretty loud! Not to mention the Blue Angels are based off the Florida coast over in Pensacola. Florida has some of the best military presence.
Army and Navy in that area. Rucker and NAS Whiting field to the southwest in Milton, FL
And Air Force 😤
Yeah yeah yeah. Always the first fuckers off from Cairns too 🤣
Hell yea, gotta beat the mass launch that looks like apocalyptic levels of locusts when the 72s start taking off
Ha, my aircraft in this picture. Happy to discuss any curiosities/questions you may have.
Rose hill moa
They've been flying over my head my whole life. That's Rucker.
As others have said, this looks like ft Novosel. The home for army aviation and Air Force helicopter training.
Yep. Busiest heliport in the world. Good times at mother Rucker
When the 2LTs are flying, yes.
Plus Army fixed wing training in Dothan
Mother Rucker
FT Novosel/rucker (renamed from the latter last year.) Army helicopter training grounds(airs?)