When the helicopter slowly approached the school, the noise of propeller attracted all teachers and students to gather in the corridor, watching or taking photos of the helicopter. The helicopter hovered over the school and then directly landed after finding a good location. The students who witnessed this scene said that they had never been so close to helicopter and that they were very impressed.
At the end of this December, NASC will receive the 4th delivery of four UH-60M Black Hawks and seven UH-1H helicopters deployed to the Hualien and Taitung bases will be decommissioned and gifted to a number of technical and vocational schools. These helicopters will be used to enhance our country’s aerospace, mechanical, electronic and electrical technology related fundamentals, designs and development capabilities in order to generate more values on education and learning. At the moment, NASC has been proactive in renew the fleet. Upon receipt of this news, many technical and vocational schools then strove for obtaining decommissioned helicopters for the purpose of studying real machines.
For the sake of fairness, all applicant schools were requested to submit a proposal to NASC before the public evaluation meeting was taken place on November 28. At the end, seven schools including Tamkang University were selected to receive the helicopters, and nine schools including Army Academy of National Defense will receive the aircraft engine. Upon receipt of the news, the said schools immediately dispatched personnel to negotiate relevant issues with NASC. It was decided to pass two UH-1H helicopters on to National Cheng Kung University and Hujiang High School (Taipei) by driving them to the said schools on December 12; drive four helicopters to Dah-Chin Commercial and Industrial Vocational High School (Changhua), Huade Vocational High School of Technology and Home Economics (Kaohsiung), Dader Industrial and Commercial Vocational High School (Yunlin) and Vanung University on December 14, 15, 26 and 27; and pass one helicopter to Tamkang University through land transportation on December 20.
UH-1H helicopter is a classic multi-purpose helicopter manufactured by Bell Helicopter Textron in the United States and there are currently 4000 to 5000 UH-1H helicopters flying around the world. The UH-1H helicopters of NASC not only experienced the September 21 Earthquake, Typhoon Morakot and Typhoon Toraji, but also implemented forest fire rescue and offshore island medical missions with enormous contributions. Although UH-1H helicopters have been well-maintained and showed extraordinary performance, these over-forty-years-old helicopters are relatively older and must be decommissioned due rescue efficiency and safety concerns. Instructor Huang Shun-Ho who was in charge of driving one of the UH-1H helicopters to Hujiang High School said “Just like leaving an old friend, my feelings are very complicated. But, it is great that this old friend can generate more values in terms of education and I will visit this old friend when I have time”. Students of the school, on the other hand, said that they were excited about being able to repair “the real aircrafts” and believed that it would help them to enhance their skills.
After the decommission of old aircrafts, NASC will create a brand new UH-60M fleet for the bases in Hualien and Taitung according to the schedule. This new fleet will implement mountain and sea rescue missions in areas of Hualien, Taitung and offshore island to create a safe living environment for people of the country.