Rare video footage of operational trials of the Mi-24 Hind by the United States Coast Guard. Had it been accepted in the role of long-range search and rescue (SAR) missions, it would have borne the designation MH-66LR Pelican.
(images via)
This poorly caricatured buzzard perched on a cloud was the emblem of the USAF's 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, which for five years flew a series of secret missions during the Vietnam War. When their true nature was finally revealed to the United States and the world, it resulted in a new convention (signed in Geneva, no less!) banning such activities from the lawful conduct of war. The 54th's 'Motorpool' flights were part of Operation POPEYE, an attempt to modify the weather over Indochina; pairs of WC-130 Herculese and RF-4C Phantom aircraft would seed the clouds with silver iodide crystals, and the resulting rain was intended to turn the vital North Vietnamese supply line known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail into a muddy, impassable morass. 1,435 'Motorpool' sorties later, the whistle was blown by the New York Times in July 1972 (syndicated muckraking columnist Jack Anderson had the scoop over a year before but had referred to it as INTERMEDIARY-COMPATRIOT, a possibly bogus code-name). As a result, multiple House and Senate resolutions were passed banning 'environmental warfare'; these were expanded in 1977 into an international treaty known as the Environmental Modification Convention aka ENMOD. This has been a Xenophone TRUFAX submission to The Alt-Historian.