Boeing's CH-47C Chinook 71-20951.

71-20951

"Geronimos"

71-20951, Boeing build number B-685, was a CH-47C helicopter. The U.S. Army acceptance date was 21 July 1972. 71-20951 accumulated 2,519.0 aircraft hours. At some point, 71-20951 was assigned to the 205th Assault Support Helicopter Company (ASHC) - "Geronimos", 4th Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), United States Army Europe (USAREUR), Finthen Army Airfield, Finthen, near Mainz, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (West Germany). In November 1988, the 205th ASHC was re-designated B Company - "Geronimos", 6th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, and made a subordinate unit of the 12th Aviation Brigade, 5th Corps, USAREUR, when the 4th TRANSCOM was de-activated. B Company was deactivated in September 1992. When the 12th Aviation Brigade stood down shortly thereafter, it was relocated to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and re-designated 159th Combat Aviation Group (CAG). The 159th CAG was relocated to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 1997. On 25 August 1992, 71-20951 was inducted into the E model program and converted to 92-00475. The last known location of 71-20951 was at Boeing during the conversion. Aircraft status: Converted to E model.

In the February 1986 newspaper article below, originally published in the "4th Trans Communicator" - a monthly publication of the 4th Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) - Chinook 71-20951 is shown supporting troops during REFORGER '86. REFORGER stood for Return of Forces to Europe and was an annual exercise conducted during the cold war to show opponents of freedom and democracy that the western world was serious about defending it. Annually, hundreds of thousands of troops from many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries would deploy to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (then known as West Germany) to show their resolve.

The aircrew during this mission was CW3 Tom Read, Pilot in Command (PIC) - top photo, WO1 Mark S. Morgan, copilot (CP) - the "steady hand" in the bottom photo, right, SGT Sammy Burns, Flight Engineer (FE) - not pictured, and SP4 Mike Nunn, Crew Chief (CE) - bottom photo, left.