We had a Billings Chinook here at Ukiah for a week or so just recently. This is a great video on their operation, answers a lot of questions I had as to why it was here.

Thanks for posting!

Dan

Those stripped down D models are beasts with the 714 engines. The last D model I crewed in the 101st was tracked really well, and could cruise 150+ kts when light. It's really cool to see new life being breathed in to these aircraft, and put to good use.

As the dumb high school kid, I worked for them in the mid 90's when they bought their first Huey, driving trucks, loading chemical, fueling, etc. At the time the two founders were both FO's at a major airline. They'd do crop dusting and their first helicopter jobs on their time away from the airline.

I still recall my first day on the job. Crop dusting in rural eastern Montana. I loaded up in the third row of a 55 Baron at their airstrip south of Billings and we headed east. A while later we approached the job site, turning base I noticed their wasn't an airport. Landed the baron on a dirt road near the truck and spray planes and went to work.

The old man wrecked 29 airplanes over his lifetime. The stories are incredible. Ever use an airplane to blow the leaves out of your house? Ever thought it was a good idea to put a saddle from your horse on an ag tractor, between the prop and windshield and then ride it around the patch? Or wanting to transport two snowmobiles under the wings of your plane but thinking two might be too heavy so let's just do one. Then getting airborne and realizing that snowmobile under the right wing is too much weight for that wing and being full left rudder and aileron and having barely enough control to make a 360 and land.
Or your brother installing a cable across your runway and taking a backhoe to make the trench right after you left. You come back and rip both mains off the ag wagon. Or sneaking up behind said brother in the ag wagon and dropping several hundred gallons of water on him. Ever done home repair with a helicopter? The guy who built my hangar house did a lot of work for them, even wrecked one of their Cubs because they let him taxi around by himself before he learned to fly. Found himself in the air. Got it on the ground but then put it on its nose.

The old man was still around when I was there. He would help out where he could. Wanted to stay involved with the boys as they took things on and ran it their way. They had a different approach compared to how things had been run before.