Spur's LOH Still Flying!

Then!

"The Luckey Lady"
Photo Courtesy of John Connor. Robert Fisher, C.E. pictured - 1968

 

Now!...

Photo Courtesy of John Rouse - Gainesville Police Department - 1998

 

Pictured above is former Silver Spur OH-6A, tail number 66-17792. After 30 years, this chopper is still flying for the Gainesville Police Department. Below is a request from John Rouse:

"My name is John Rouse and I live in Gainesville, FL. I am a Police Officer with the Gainesville Police Department assigned to the Aviation Unit. We currently fly an OH-6A that was in TRP A 3SQ 17 CAV. According to my informaation the ship was in that unit from May '68 to Oct. '68. I would like to find any of the pilots who flew this ship. [66-17792]

"After Troop A, the ship was transferred to 3rd BDE 101 ABN , 142 TC DS, and D 315 CAV 164AV. The records I have are from Gary Roush. From what I have read about the type of missions that were flown it was not uncommon to take hits. The info I have gives an incident that happened on 10 Sep 68. The info states that the ship took one hit in the engine compartment and completed all objectives. If you have any info about this or any other missions I would be grateful. I will send a photo of what she looks like today.

Can you help ?

Sincerely,

John Rouse

UPDATE - 1 April 2009:

My name is Mike Barnes and I am assigned to the Gainesville Police Department’s Aviation Unit in Gainesville, FL. We had an airshow last weekend and a person contacted me and said that your association was looking for our OH-6. He handed me a copy of an email that was written by John “Waldo” Pepper and he was looking for our helicopter. To answer the question, we sold our helicopter in 2007 to Lance Aviation. It was then sold to someone else, to work on a tuna boat in the Pacific. The possible email address for the captain of the boat is theskipper@att.net

I hope this helps your association out some.

The tail number on the aircraft at the time of sale was N911GP.

Mike Barnes
Gainesville Police Department
Aviation Unit