Aviation Memories

I had always wanted to be a pilot and in 1969, the U.S. Army was offering to teach young high school graduates how to fly helicopters. So I signed a contract that guaranteed my status as a Warrant Officer Candidate and soon found myself on an airplane heading for Fort Polk, Louisiana, to learn how to be a soldier and then I was sent to Fort Wolters, Texas, to learn how to fly a helicopter. 

Army helicopter flight training was an intense experience which lasted for approximately nine months. I graduated from flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama. I was promoted to the rank of Warrant Officer and was eventually assigned to the 240th Assault Helicopter Company in Vietnam.

Every AHC in Vietnam had a nickname and we were called the Greyhounds. I flew the UH-1D helicopter which is better known as a “Huey”. These jet engine powered aircraft were the work horses of the Vietnam War.

When I first arrived in country, I flew troops into and out of landing zones during combat assaults. I also resupplied them with ammunition, food, and water while rescuing the wounded and retrieving fallen heroes. 

Without getting too technical, I need to take a minute to explain how a helicopter flies because otherwise the rest of my story might not make any sense.

The main rotor blades revolve to keep the aircraft in the air. The tail rotor is called an anti-torque device because it keeps the body of the aircraft from spinning in the opposite direction of the rotor blades. Four sets of controls must be simultaneously operated by the pilot and an adjustment of one requires an adjustment of all the others. These controls are called the cyclic, the collective, the pedals, and the throttle.

When the engine stops, a helicopter can be landed safely by means of autorotation. I could write a book about this process but for simplicity’s sake, just imagine that rotor blades act as a parachute which can be employed to avoid a hard landing.

A successful autorotation is impossible without a tail rotor. However there are some things that can be done to correct that anti-torque problem.

If the tail rotor malfunctions at a 3-foot hover, you can roll off the throttle and cushion yourself onto the ground using collective pitch to provide lift as the main rotor gradually stops rotating.

Then there are times in mid-flight when the tail rotor falls off or gets stuck in a left or right pedal position. The tail boom will provide enough anti-torque capability if air speed is adjusted correctly.

Landing is the problem. The procedure involves heading for a nice long runway while setting up a shallow approach and using the throttle to control the direction of the aircraft. 

The LZ (landing zone) that they had chosen for us was full of destroyed trees and burnt stumps. During our approach, I could see muzzle flashes from a fire fight near a trees line about one klick (kilometer) from the LZ.

I was the co-pilot and the aircraft was being flown by another pilot who had been in country slightly longer than me.

He was the Pilot in Command (PIC) when I heard a loud bang and I immediately thought that we had been hit by a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) but later, I learned that we had hit a tree stump and most of the tail boom was gone. Out of control, we dropped into the LZ on top of a group of Thais who were waiting to unload our cargo.

The aircraft began to spin and, as I looked down through the chin bubble, I saw the skids slam into one of our Thai allies. Blood went everywhere. 

Every warning light on the instrument panel lit up. We later discovered that, not only was the tail rotor gone, but most of the tail boom too. I waited for the PIC to roll off the throttle and do a hovering autorotation. Instead, he pulled pitch and tried to gain altitude. Wrong! This resulted in an uncontrolled spin up to approximately 50 feet above the ground. Everything went into slow motion and I saw a dark shadow lowering over my eyes.

I felt very calm, realized that I was going to die, and hoped that it wouldn't hurt too badly when it happened. 

When the PIC pushed the cyclic forward to gain airspeed, we started spinning faster and I was sure we were all dead because the PIC froze and stopped trying to do stuff. You have to keep doing stuff during an emergency!

So, since we were going down anyway, I grabbed the collective and rolled off the throttle. This was intended to mimic a hovering autorotation but it only stopped the spinning. So we landed hard on a slope and rolled to the left where the main rotor hit the ground and beat itself to death with the main body of the aircraft still attached.

When we stopped moving, I was dazed and I remember trying to unlock my seat belt to escape but I couldn't focus on the task.