Army Aviation: "Above the Best" ~ 1957 US Army; The Big Picture TV-343 (Patreon)

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'This week's chapter of THE BIG PICTURE, will spotlight the growth and military importance of aviation in the Army. In a half hour TV documentary filmed on location at Fort Rucker, Alabama, home of the Army Aviation School, viewers will see the story of air mobility in today's Army. The flexible, modern Army bears a family resemblance to the Army of 1918 and 1942, but that is where the similarity ends. Today, we must have a highly mobile, self-sufficient battle force. To control his widely dispersed elements, the ground commander must be constantly aware of the battle situation. He must know where the enemy is, and what he is doing. And, he must be able to transport his own forces to battle at top speed, at the point where they are most needed. It is here, that Army aviation is needed. In this program viewers will see how Army aviation moves men at 100 miles an hour, how the helicopter may replace the truck in moving supplies, and how the Army's new light aircraft give the ground commander "eyes in the skies." The motto of the Army Aviation School, on whose training fields this program originates, expresses well this new concept of Army Aircraft in the Sky over Army Troops on the Ground... "Above the Best."'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Aviation_Branch

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The United States Army Aviation Branch is the administrative organization within the United States Army responsible for doctrine, manning and configuration for all army aviation units.

After the United States Army Air Corps grew into the Army Air Forces and split into the new service, the United States Air Force, the Army was left with its sole fixed-wing aviation units flying Taylorcraft L-2 Grasshopper observation planes for artillery units. The Army would develop a new concept of aviation using the helicopter that would show promise during the Korean War and would revolutionize warfare during the Vietnam War...

United States military aviation began in 1907 with the Army’s acquisition of its first heavier-than-air aircraft, an airplane built to Army specifications by the Wright brothers. During World War I, the Air Service's aircraft strength grew from a few dozen to more than 11,000 planes, and the number of aviation personnel came to total more than 190,000...

The Korean War provided new challenges and opportunities for Army Aviation. Organic Army Aviation had acquired its first helicopters, thirteen Bell H-13 Sioux, in 1947, shortly before the U.S. Air Force became independent of the Army. In Korea, the Army employed the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog and other improved fixed wing planes, but also helicopters...

The first armed helicopter company was activated in Okinawa in 1962. It was deployed to Thailand and then to Vietnam, where it flew escort for lift helicopters. The Department of Defense did not abolish mission restrictions on the Army's rotary-wing aircraft, thereby technically authorizing the Army to arm helicopters until 1966. The "Howze Board," or "Tactical Mobility Requirements Board," was established in 1962 to develop and test the concept of air mobility...

Both Army Aviation and the helicopter came of age during the conflict in Southeast Asia. The most widely used helicopter, the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, or Huey, began to arrive in Vietnam in significant numbers in 1964. Before the end of the conflict, more than 5,000 of these versatile aircraft were introduced into Southeast Asia. They were used for medical evacuation, command and control, air assault; personnel and materiel transport; and gunships. The AH-1 Cobra arrived in 1967 to partially replace the Huey in its gun ship capacity. Other important helicopters in Vietnam included the Boeing CH-47 Chinook, the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse, the Bell OH-58 Kiowa, and the Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe...

Under the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966, the Army agreed to limit its fixed-wing aviation role to administrative mission support (light unarmed aircraft which cannot operate from forward positions).

...New or radically modified aircraft were adopted from the late 1970s into the mid-1980s. These included the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, Boeing AH-64 Apache, D-model of the CH-47 Chinook, and OH-58D version of the Kiowa...