Finnish Defence Forces don’t have any so I assume it belonged to the Royal Air Force. First one I’ve ever seen in person. Neat!
Given the reported start of a build up the other side of the border: I’m not sure how dull this is
Frankly no sentence with the words Apache attack helicopter in it is dull in the first place
Than you’ve never heard the tired transphobe 1joke.
Finnish media reported on it already back in February. They’re doing exactly what they said they would when we joined NATO. Nobody here was particularly worried about an invasion to begin with - and even less so after the membership. The willingness to defend the country from an invasion is higher in Finland than almost anywhere else in the world, and that was already the case before Russia invaded Ukraine. And it’s not just about willingness - we’ve been preparing for it ever since World War II.
Mechanized warfare is Russia’s thing - and considering how miserably they failed at it on the open fields of Ukraine, I double dare them to try it in our dense forests, with no roads and massive Ice Age boulders everywhere, not to mention the lakes, bogs, rivers… and every tree and bush speaking Finnish. Good luck!
I was motorbiking with some friends near the Grand Canyon on old mining roads many years ago, and we had 2 Blackhawks that must have been using us for sighting practice, because for about an hour we’d see them pop up over the hills pointed at us, then go down and come up in a different spot, again pointed towards us.
Eventually they flew directly over us as we’re bombing down a valley, and I could see someone waving at us through the window of one chopper, then they banked hard and roared off.
It was kinda neat, but a little disconcerting to realize there were probably (safed) guns pointing at us for that time.
I was on our boat anchored in a small cove once, on a dead calm summer day, when I suddenly heard a faint, low rumble on the distance. Realizing what it was, I sprang up immediately and ran out onto the deck - and saw an FDF F/A-18 fighter jet coming straight at us, doing a low-altitude flyby so close I could see the pilot with my bare eyes. The sound was nearly as good as the sight. I get excited like a kid whenever I see things like this.
Once I was biking home over the Golden Gate bridge and I saw two Osprey VTOLs fly under the bridge, pretty close to where I was standing. It was pretty awesome.
Now if there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s that nothing is more powerful than a young boy’s wish. Except an Apache helicopter. An Apache helicopter has machine guns AND missiles. It is an unbelievably impressive complement of weaponry. An absolute death machine.
- Ted, 2012
The advice I’ve heard about Apaches is that you shouldn’t bother running - you’ll just die tired.
…one afternoon about thirty years ago, an apache attack helicopter casually hovered into view directly outside my window, scanned its turret back-and-forth inside my office, and gently settled onto the open field outside: it was show-and-tell day at his daughter’s daycare next door, we learned afterward…
Back during the Afghanistan war, Stealth Bombers coming back from missions would use Fenway Park in Boston as a waypoint.
One day a buddy and I were sitting in his car at a traffic light when we looked up and saw one fly over.
One of the cooler things I’ve ever seen.
It’s pretty crazy that they fly all that distance to drop a couple bombs and then fly all the way back.
I knew some guys in the air national guard; for their drill weekends they would have the planes prepped Friday, fly all day Saturday, refilling in the air, drop bombs, turn around, and fly back Sunday, in time to go to their normal jobs on Monday. That was their drill weekend. In the air for almost the entire time.
Meanwhile I’m in the army national guard and we are just looking over some humvees and sitting in some shitty admin briefings all day.
I have helis flying over all day every day (bar Sunday), being under a major helicopter flight path. We get the odd plane or light aircraft going over too.
I was sat wondering wtf a droning noise was - too quiet for a heli, too low a tone for a commercial aircraft - looked online at it was the US Navy heading up to Norway for whatever reason.
The Eurofighter Typhoon has a real unique engine note too, even at a couple of tens of thousands of feet up, it still makes you wonder “hey wtf is that sound?”
It’s the first sign of the rapture! Soon people will be disappearing all over your neighborhood!
I only see the NH-90 helicopters a few times per month. They make a very loud sound.
Those are the ones I usually see as well. They do these weird loops over my neighbourhood sometimes flying quite low and I can’t figure out why.
