This video was made to commemorate 17 years of flying on Washington State's Mount Rainier National Park by air and supporting ground crews of the 92nd Aviation Company, an Army Reserve unit based at Paine Field, Everett Washington State. During that time The Hookers flew four different models of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook: The A model, with a max gross weight of 33,000 lb and 133-knot max speed, The B Model featuring bigger engines, advanced rotor blade airfoils, and a max gross increase to 40,000 pounds and 170-knot max speed, the C Model with a max gross weight of 46,000 pounds, and 170-knot top speed, and finally the CH-47D with a max gross weight of 50,000 pounds and a top speed of 170 knots. The D model had many improvements including a triple-cargo hook configuration and more powerful engines. The A could lift 10,000 pounds and with the arrival of the D model's payloads of up to 27,000 pounds could be lifted. 

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Two new D models could easily carry 4,500,000 pounds of gravel, quarried stone, bridges, and other materials during their annual 2-week work schedule on the mountain. All loads were conducted as a tactical deployment done at very high gross weights, high-density altitudes, marginal weather from 5,500 feet all the way to Rainier's 14,411-foot summit. Most loads were carried as long-line sling loads with many reaching 250 feet needed to clear trees and ice walls. Most loads demanded high-precision placement such as pouring concrete in 30-foot high forms for a new steel suspension bridge over the Carbon River. Many log bridges that were prebuilt at the Kautz Creek helibase weighed 10 tons or more and had to be set across alpine creeks precisely on pre-existing bridge piers.  

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Our instructor pilots and experienced aircraft commanders took maximum advantage of Rainier's extreme conditions to train aircrews.   We got the training and the National Park enjoyed the preservation and restoration of the resource.   As Park Trail Maintenance Supervisor, Mike Carney once said: it was "an amazing ballet of human beings and awesome flying machines."

 

The video was shot by CW4 Mike Jones, Hooker 31, and Boeing Helicopters Motion Picture Division.  Video editing done by Mike Jones in 1992.