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What the jeep was to Americans during World War II, so was the Huey to those who fought in Vietnam. All branches of the U. S. military operated them and they ranged to every corner of South Vietnam and into Cambodia and Laos. The term 'Huey' originated in the U. S. Army as a derivative of the original designation HU-1A - Helicopter, Utility, Model 1A. For a time, the Huey was one of the most recognizable aircraft in history. People knew it not just on sight but by sound, too. They usually heard the unmistakable whop-whop-whop of the main rotor blade long before they saw a Huey.

The concept for this aircraft sprang from the cold, muddy battlefields of the Korean War, where the original MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) helicopter, the Bell 47, recovered thousands of wounded soldiers and delivered them straight to critical care units. In 1954 the U. S. Army launched a design competition for a new medical evacuation (medevac) helicopter. The Army specifications described an aircraft that weighed 3,600 kg (8,000 lb), fully loaded. It could carry a payload of 360 kg (800 lb) a distance of at least 365 km (227 miles) and cruise at 184 kph (114 mph). The helicopter could climb to a service ceiling of 1,824 m (6,000 ft).

Bell Helicopter Corporation enjoyed several advantages in competing for this contract. The Army held the company in high regard, based on the excellent service rendered by the piston engine-powered Bell 47 during the Korean War. Bell was already flying an H-13D equipped with a French-designed, American-made, Continental XT-51 gas turbine engine. Bell called this modified H-13D test aircraft the Bell Model 201 but the Army gave it the designation XH-13F. The turbine engine represented a revolutionary step in the development of helicopters, and the Army saw it as a critical component in the new medevac helicopter design. Compared to the reciprocating piston engine, the turbine was lighter, smoother, easier to maintain, and much more reliable.

Testing the H-13D gave Bell the confidence to incorporate a turbine engine in the Army's new transport helicopter design. At about the same time, the Lycoming Company was developing the XT-53 engine with Army backing. Lycoming had not designed this engine for a specific application but Bell engineers saw great potential in this power plant. They joined with Lycoming to develop the XT-53 to Bell Helicopter specifications, and this new engine eventually powered the prototype Huey. The Army designated this prototype the XH-40 and the first one flew on October 22, 1956. It performed so well that Bell earned a contract to produce three more prototypes in February 1955. Tests on these helicopters (Bell Model 204) were successful and Bell and the Army signed a contract to build 200 production medevac versions plus 100 outfitted as instrument trainers to teach pilots to fly at night and in bad weather.

Flight tests revealed no significant problems with the prototypes and production began in September 1958 when the first of 182 Model 204s rolled off the assembly line. The new aircraft was designated HU-1A (hence the nickname 'Huey') and officially christened the Iroquois, in keeping with the Army tradition of naming helicopters after American Indian tribes. In 1962 the Army aircraft designation system changed and the HU-1 became the UH-1, but the Huey nickname remained.

In 1960 representatives from Bell Helicopter met with U. S. Army General Hamilton Howze. The general was promoting the idea of moving Army infantry around the battlefield using helicopters rather than trucks. United States Marines of the Marine Helicopter Squadron HMX-1 first conceived of and tested the concept of moving troops with helicopters in 1948 along the coast of North Carolina.

In 1962 General Howze was put in charge of a board formed to consider and test new tactical theories. During these trials, Howze used Hueys to demonstrate the ease of moving a company of infantry (about 100 soldiers) across a river or over rough terrain. He argued that the Army's two airborne divisions - the 82nd and the 101st - needed this capability because both units were designed to move quickly to counter battlefield threats. Based on his recommendations, the Army created the 11th Air Assault Division to test Howze's theories. The results led the Army to fundamentally change the way it rode into battle and the service introduced a new type of warfare several years later on the other side of the world - Vietnam.

The first Hueys to operate in Vietnam were medevac HU-1As that arrived in April 1962, before the United States became officially involved in the conflict. These Hueys supported the South Vietnamese Army, but American crews flew them. In October, the first armed Hueys, equipped with 2.75-inch rockets and .30 caliber machine guns, began flying in Vietnam. The main role of these Huey 'gunships' was to escort Army and Marine transport helicopters. By the end of 1964, the Army was flying more than 300

is a landlocked nation in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by China. Bhutan was separated from the nearby state of Nepal to the west by the Indian state of Sikkim, and from Bangladesh to the south by West Bengal. The Bhutanese called their country Druk Yul (Dzongkha: ?????????? 'drug yul) which means "Land of the Thunder Dragon".

Bhutan used to be one of the most isolated nations in the world. Developments including direct international flights, the Internet, mobile phone networks, and cable television have increasingly modernized the urban areas of the country. Bhutan balanced modernization with its ancient culture and traditions under the guiding philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Rampant destruction of the environment has been avoided. The government takes great measures to preserve the nation's traditional culture, identity and the environment. In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, citing a global survey conducted by the University of Leicester in 2006 called the "World Map of Happiness".

Bhutan's landscape ranges from subtropical plains in the south to the Himalayan heights in the north, with some peaks exceeding 7,000 metres (23,000 ft). The state religion is Vajrayana Buddhism, and the population of 691,141 is predominantly Buddhist, with Hinduism being the second-largest religion. The capital and largest city is Thimphu. After centuries of direct monarchic rule, Bhutan held its first democratic elections in March 2008. Among other international associations, Bhutan is a member of the United Nations and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The total area of the country is currently 38,394 square kilometres (14,824 sq mi)

Name
"Bhutan" may be derived from the Sanskrit word Bhu-Utthan (??-???????; highlands). In another theory of Sanskritisation, Bho?a-anta (???-????) means "At the end of Tibet", as Bhutan is immediately to Tibet's south.


Historically Bhutan was known by many names, such as Lho Mon (southern land of darkness), Lho Tsendenjong (southern land of the Tsenden cypress), Lhomen Khazhi (southern land of four approaches) and Lho Men Jong (southern land of medicinal herbs).

History
Stone tools, weapons, elephants, and remnants of large stone structures provide evidence that Bhutan was inhabited as early as 2000 BC, although there are no existing records from that time. Historians have theorized that the state of Lhomon (literally, "southern darkness", a reference to the indigenous Mon religion), or Monyul ("Dark Land", a reference to the Monpa, the aboriginal peoples of Bhutan) may have existed between 500 BC and AD 600. The names Lhomon Tsendenjong (Sandalwood Country), and Lhomon Khashi, or Southern Mon (country of four approaches), have been found in ancient Bhutanese and Tibetan chronicles.
The earliest transcribed event in Bhutan was the passage of the Buddhist saint Padma Sambhava (also known as Guru Rinpoche) in 747. Bhutan's early history is unclear, because most of the records were destroyed after fire ravaged the ancient capital, Punakha, in 1827. By the 10th century, Bhutan's political development was heavily influenced by its religious history. Various sub-sects of Buddhism emerged which were patronized by the various Mongol warlords. After the decline of the Mongols in the 14th century, these sub-sects vied with each other for supremacy in the political and religious landscape, eventually leading to the ascendancy of the Drukpa sub-sect by the 16th century.

Until the early 17th century, Bhutan existed as a patchwork of minor warring fiefdoms, when the area was unified by the Tibetan lama and military leader Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal who fled religious persecution in Tibet. To defend the country against intermittent Tibetan forays, Namgyal built a network of impregnable dzong (fortresses), and promulgated a code of law that helped to bring local lords under centralized control. Many such dzong still exist and are active centers of religion and district administration. Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal also brought Nepalese people from Gorkha when Ram Shah was King of Gorkha. He brought 42 Nepalese families under the leadership of Bishnu Thapa Magar in 1616. Circa 1627, Portuguese Jesuit Estevao Cacella and another priest were the first recorded Europeans to visit Bhutan on their way to Tibet. They met with Ngawang Namgyal, presented him with firearms, gunpowder and a telescope, and offered him their services in the war against Tibet, but the Shabdrung declined the offer. After a stay of nearly eight months Cacella wrote a long letter from the Chagri Monastery reporting on his travels. This is a rare extant report of the Shabdrung.

After Namgyal's death in 1651, Bhutan fell into civil war. Taking advanta