Another old war story

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Bill N said:
Lou I think I would ask Bill our Huey Pilot VN to comment on the likelihood of that story.  I see it as only a enlisted man makes officer look dumb fabrication or maybe just a stretch.  But I stand ready to listen to any chopper pilots view.

Bill
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I've seen butter bars that naive (to be kind).
 
I can believe Lou's story.

The helicopters in the Korea war were not as sophisticated, (H-13 and earlier with the big bubble) think MASH.

Losing a small section at the end of one main rotor blade would cause a nasty one to one oscillation and shake so bad that you would think it was falling apart and land.

Taking off a similar amount from the other end would reduce the shaking and vibration.

I have also seen some second Louies and higher rank that would take on an attitude also.

Besides, I have yet to find any of Lou's stories to be less than believable.  If nothing else it is a funny example of Rank versus experience and common sense.
 
Cooperhawk said:
I just reread a lot of this thread and will comment on one where Bill was made the Test Flight Pilot for his unit along with a couple others.

I worked in a General Support/Depot company in VN.  After being there for six months I was assigned the job of going over aircraft after they came out of rebuild.  We did a lot of rebuilds.  What I would do is take the tech manual and spend hours going over every detail of the ship.  Check all the nuts and bolts were safetied, check pitch settings for main and tail rotor blades, make sure all fluid levels were full, and in general that the AC was flight worthy.  Then I would go get one of the test pilots, I think we had three as well,  together we would run the AC up and check all voltages rotor blade tracking and such.  That took several more hours.  Once satisfied we would hover the AC for a while or until the test pilot was happy with it, and then test fly it.  The company rule was that if I was not willing to fly in the left seat, the pilot wouldn't fly it either.  I did a lot of that.

One day we had a ship that I deemed ready for test flight, but the pilot who I flew with a lot said I should get a hair cut, as I was getting scraggly, and he would take some mechanics on the flight with him.  Worked for me.  I came back from my hair cut to find a very angry test pilot.  He asked me if I was sure the 45 degree gear box was full of lubricant.  I replied I was.  He then showed me the box and sight glass was devoid of any fluid.  In a few more minutes of flight it could have failed causing severe problems.  I assured him it had been full.

I had a mechanic fill it up again and we ran the AC up on the ground.  In fifteen minutes the gear box was dry.  The seals were bad and I was forgiven.

It's little things like this that kill people.

Another time I was test flying with a new pilot that I really didn't know.  He was one of those that liked to get the most out of the AC.  We were contouring a mountain which was very steep.  In fact we were climbing almost vertical just a few feet from the trees.  As we went over the top and he dropped the Collective to descend down the other side something went through the rotor blades with a clang, clang.  Scared the bejeebers out of us and we returned to base immediately.  I spent hours inspecting the rotor blades as well as the entire ship and never found any evidence of what caused the noise.  I originally thought maybe a mechanic had left a tool someplace and when we went negative Gs it had flown up through the blades, or I was looking for bullet holes.  Never found anything.
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This post is a good example of how maintenance test flights were all about careful and through procedures to insure that the aircraft was safe to release for service.

I also spent a lot of time hovering before taking off during a maintenance test flight.  If anything was not right you wanted to find out near the ground.

I also took the crew chief or other crew member along usually giving a flight lesson at the end of the flight.  It never hurts to have another crew member know more about how to get back on the ground in case anything happened to the pilots.

Good crews have a tight bond and look out for each other.

Maintenance Test Flight are one of the few times in the military that you are allowed to routinely fly without a rated copilot, (second rated pilot)
 
HueyPilotVN said:
Maintenance Test Flight are one of the few times in the military that you are allowed to routinely fly without a rated copilot, (second rated pilot)
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When I was there in 65 there were simply not enough pilots for each AC to have two, so a lot of Crew Chiefs flew the left seat.  We actually had some Spec 6s that were rated for run ups so we could do blade tracking.

I flew left seat many times when we got shipments of Hueys that had to be distributed to other bases, and I was certainly not the only one.  When young warrants were told to fly an AC somewhere else alone they got very nervous.  That's why the practice was allowed.  Their biggest fear was loss of hydraulics and not having a second set of hands to handle the control forces.  We often received shipments of Hueys from aircraft carriers and then we would go over the ships  prior to delivering them.  We would get anywhere from a dozen to two dozen at a time.  We also went to the docks in Saigon and unloaded them from ships that were docked.  We would strip the cocoons, preflight them and fly them back to our unit.

This was prior to the Air Mobile Divisions deployment and all the AC went to MACV.

It was the wild wild west.
 
Thanks.

As Huey pilot mentioned we did a lot of hovering checking out everything we could close to the ground, sometimes shutting down and making more adjustments, and then hovering again.  Most Test Pilots I flew with made their last task to set the AC up for an approach to a runway, then we would brace ourselves, and on his command I would shut off the Hydraulics with the little switch on the console.  If he could make the approach and land the AC we would sign it off.

That sounds simple enough, but if I had not gotten the settings correct the AC could become very uncontrollable and even come apart.  I was very careful about that and I always kept my hand on that switch to bring the hydraulics back on line if we needed it.  Thankfully we never did.
 
HueyPilotVN said:
Maintenance Test Flight are one of the few times in the military that you are allowed to routinely fly without a rated copilot, (second rated pilot)
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Back in the late 60s (same time as the Vietnam war) I don't recall ever having a rated co-pilot in the left seat of those UH1Fs when operating in the Minuteman missile field.  Some of our missile crewmembers were rated pilots but none in helicopters.  HOWEVER, we were not at war or flying over enemy territory and once I had the pleasure of autorotating to the ground - now that is a thrill.
I see that the missile guys are now being chauffered in UH1Ns and are desperate for replacements which are in the bidding process.

BTW Lou in Detroit, I apologize for doubting you.  Bill seems to back up the story but things sometimes tend to get embellished a bit when recounting war stories.

Bill
 
Well I have contemplated how to tell this story for a while yet knew it might still be classified but found only recently that it has been declassified. Rather than redescribe the happenings in my own words I will simply post a link to a newspaper article about the event and say that I was on duty the day of this accident at another Air Force Missile Launch Control Center only 25 miles away from the one in the story. I talked to the crew on duty at Lima Control during the accident and they were as bumfuzzled as to the cause as most of the others.
But I also need to add that you will see the name Bob Hicks quite a few times in the story and a lot of it is nothing more than a bunch of BS. He evidently was the main source for the newspaper because he is painted as the hero but was but one fish in a huge pond and a lot of his story has to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless it is a long story so be prepared to read if you hit the link.
tinyurl.com

Details of South Dakota nuclear-missile accident released

How Ellsworth airmen in 1964 responded to an unprecedented accident with a Minuteman missile.
tinyurl.com tinyurl.com

Bill
 
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Very interesting story Bill.  BTW, when we were in Branson we were accompanied by my cousin Kurt who retired from the AF a few years ago as a Major.  He was a missile commander at Ellsworth at one point. Small world.
 
HueyPilotVN said:
For the next twenty years we did not advertise that we were vets although I never felt that we did anything dishonerable or unpatriotic.
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back in the 70's no one would have ever said  'Thank you for you service' either...

As a member of the losing team, I still feel very uncomfortable when I'm given praise for my service and sacrifice, that was obviously meant for currant members of our military.

 
sightseers said:
back in the 70's no one would have ever said  'Thank you for you service' either...

As a member of the losing team,  I still feel very uncomfortable when I'm given praise for my service and sacrifice, that was obviously meant for currant members of our military.
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I use to feel kinda left out but that has changed over the last 15 years or so. Now I feel much better especially on veterans day when it seems like everyone says thank you knowing we probably served in VN.
 
Back in the seventies I worked in a facility with several VN vets.  We talked amongst ourselves about our experiences, but no one else seemed interested.  Then I transferred to another facility where my boss forbid us to talk amongst ourselves about anything having to do with VN.  Turned out that there were some folks who had evaded the draft and didn't like to hear about it.  They had to be eavesdropping as it was.

That was when I rebelled.  I purchased a VN Vet plate for my vehicle and started wearing my old flight jacket to work.  Nothing he could do.  Since then I display that I'm a vet and talk about it to anyone who asks.  I took a lot of heat for a while, but it sure is changing for the better these days.

If someone doesn't like it, they can discuss it with me.  They don't.
 
Yep,  Every time some old ex-hippy with a PHD and a grey ponytail says to me "Thank you for your service" ..  I feel like saying...oh really?  so what changed your mind?
 
sightseers said:
Yep,  Every time some old ex-hippy with a PHD and a grey ponytail says to me "Thank you for your service" ..  I feel like saying...oh really?  so what changed your mind?
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We were eating breakfast after church one Sunday morning when one came over and wanted to pay our bill.  I told him NO!
 
  Those that have not served will never "get" it, they dont understand and never will. I refuse to discuss it with anyone critical and especially if they have never been thereanddone the time. This is a very special group that veterans belong to, Its not your local car club or or library club, much deeper than that, going beyond borders and oceans. It is the single best thing I have done for myself or fellow man and regret that I am too old to do it again.
 
catblaster said:
  Those that have not served will never "get" it, they dont understand and never will. I refuse to discuss it with anyone critical and especially if they have never been thereanddone the time. This is a very special group that veterans belong to, Its not your local car club or or library club, much deeper than that, going beyond borders and oceans. It is the single best thing I have done for myself or fellow man and regret that I am too old to do it again.
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Well said Will.  :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) :))
 
One of my hard core combat friends will never tell you any of the good X rated stuff unless everyone is really drunk.

That for us,  is the best times to recount some of the stupid stuff everyone did,

.... then it's slam a beer before you shed a tear.
 
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