When a wide-eyed, urgent Gleek ran to me shouting “Mommy! You have to come and see!” I wasn’t very impressed. Usually this behavior means that she wants to show me a mushroom or how she can jump off the swing. But then she announced that a big brown helicopter had landed in the church parking lot only two blocks from our house.
She was so urgent and insistent, that I took her to go and see. Sure enough, an apache helicopter was sitting in the parking lot at our church. It had already acquired a crowd of curious onlookers and a police cruiser to help manage the onlookers. Apparently the apache was on its way to be part of a parade when some tell-tales told the pilot to land NOW. When I arrived they were waiting for a mechanic to show up. While they waited the two pilots were happily letting kids climb on the chopper and explaining how everything works. Gleek was in heaven. She chattered with the pilots and climbed up on the chopper. In no time at all, she was an expert on everything.
I stood back and watched Gleek as she explored the chopper. The juxtaposition of petite little girl in a pink nightgown and blonde ponytail perched up on that olive drab military chopper was very interesting. Several times her antics made some kind adult reach up and lift her down. I guess she was making others nervous. I wasn’t nervous. I’ve seen her do much more daring things a million times before. She really is a strong little monkey.
When the mechanic arrived, all the spectators were asked to step back. He changed out a few parts then they fired up the engines and ran the blades for a bit. Then they changed out a couple more parts. Eventually they fixed the problem sufficiently that the chopper could take off. As I saw the huge machine take to the sky I marveled at the wonders of modern engineering. The chopper was huge with millions of working parts. It may be odd of me, but for a moment I was glad that we have a military so that we can support such beautiful and amazing machines. I think it was even more beautiful for the fact that no effort was made to make it shiny or pretty. That apache was a work machine, built to do a job. I get some of this same feel whenever I watch construction machines at work.
The apache lifted off, blowing a cloud of dust at everyone. Then it roared off into the sunset. Literally. I lost sight of it because the setting sun was in my eyes. Then in the cool evening Gleek and I walked home together. I’m so glad I took the hour to go and see what Gleek was excited about.
There’s a strange beauty to such machines, especially in the machines of war, for some reason. So many of the planes and things are sleek, curvy, and look like they were built by ferarri without a budget. There are reasons why (stealth and speed, mostly), of course, but they mostly just look… expensive.
And then you get such ‘ugly ducks’ as the Apache, the A-10, and other such vehicles… no-one put ‘pretty’ in their design specification, and their sheer utilitarianess gives them a certain beauty of their own. There’s a few russian designs built along similar principles, but otherwise the dynamics of needing to be streamlined, yet with little need to be ‘sleek’ are, well, rare. I both envy your chance to see such a beast in real life (Apache helicopters in NZ? Ahahahahano.), and suspect that it may be a memory Gleek remembers for a while. It’s not every day you get to clamber around on a twenty million dollar jungle gym! 🙂
(Incidentally, if any photos crop up regarding it, I’d love to see them.)
I wish you had photos. That would be a sight to see.
The closest to a comparable thing we have is the time I walked outside the front door to find this:
I understand what you mean about the Apache not being “pretty”. There is a certain elegance to a machine (of any kind) that is completely obviously designed with function as the sole consideration, without the faintest suggestion of any compromise to mere aesthetics. It’s a sort of elemental purity. “Look, I’m a [main battle tank, attack helicopter, mega-earthmover], OK? This is what I DO. I’m not here to look pretty.”
(I suppose this is possibly part of what attracts me more to military firearms than to “sporting” ones. They have that same elemental purity about them. Plus, they tend to be more mechanically interesting in their design in the first place.)
She looks like she’s having a good time.
Vorn
Oh yeah. She loves to get on a motorcycle. We have to be careful when friends ride over to make sure she doesn’t get burned on the exhaust (or climb on without asking permission first). She has my vote for “Most Likely Future World Superbike Champion” in the family. 🙂