Tag Archives: fort novosel

Lakota Sardines

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Fort Novosel (formerly “Mother” Rucker), spanning more than 60,000 acres of rural dark space across Southeastern Alabama about an hour or so from Tallahassee, has over 600 operational helicopters.

Think about that.

That is a figure just about equal to the entire Marine Corps’ inventory (active and reserve, spread from Okinawa to North Carolina), or about three times that of the USAF (likewise, active and reserve, all around the globe). Novosel may be the busiest helicopter base on the planet, even swamping Cambell which has the 101st ABN (280 helos) and the bulk of the Nighstalkers of the 160th SOAR (150 birds).

And that isn’t even counting the 250-odd static aircraft in the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence (museum) which I had the privilege to visit and film at last year.

With so many airframes and Cat 4 Hurricane Helene inbound, threatening 140 mph winds, it was all hands on deck at Novosel the past couple of days stacking the hangars at the complex’s assorted Army Airfields and Heliports like sardines.

From the looks of it, most are UH-72A/B Lakotas (U.S.-built Eurocopter EC145s).

Here’s to hoping everyone makes it through this.

Keep safe, folks.

Cue, ‘Fortunate Son’…

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I recently hit the road in southwest Alabama and visited the U.S. Army Aviation Museum, one of the largest military helicopter collections in the world.

Located at Fort Novosel (formerly Fort Rucker, aka “Mother Rucker”), the sprawling 60,000-acre complex has been home to all Army helicopter training since 1959 and all aviation training since 1973. 

The Museum has over 250 aircraft in its inventory – some incredibly rare.

The post earlier this year was named in honor of Army CWO Michael J. Novosel, a UH-1 medevac pilot who evacuated an amazing 5,589 wounded personnel while in Vietnam, earning a well-deserved Medal of Honor.

While I have a full 15-minute video and lots of images over in my column at GDC, these two struck me as appropriate for today.

In a sobering display, a downed Huey is shown in the center of the museum’s main gallery.

The Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association estimates over 3,300 UH-1 models were lost either due to combat or accidents during the war.