RATS

RATS!

B/229^th Avn Bn (Pilot)

Dec '66-Dec '67

I was in basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana in 1965. It was already a known fact that I was to attend Army pilot training after basic. Those of us who had been selected for flight school were given an orientation flight in a helicopter while we were still at Fort Polk. The premise was that it was a "gee-whiz" flight to keep our interest up. I really believe it was a test to see if any of us panicked. That way they could eliminate us before expensive flight training was under way.

I had never even seen a helicopter up close, and when the old Hiller H-23 showed up at the airfield, I was a little disappointed (if not discouraged). It was a strange-looking contraption that appeared to be old enough to have supported Custer at the Little Big Horn. I climbed aboard, and strapped in. What I thought would be a simple trip around the traffic pattern turned out to be a really wild ride. As the pilot put the old bird through its paces, I frequently found myself straining against the seat belt and shoulder harness. I have always enjoyed the wild, crazy rides at carnivals, so the tight turns and sudden ups and downs didn’t bother me at all. There came a time in my orientation flight, however, when I wondered if the pilot had lost his mind. He told me that he was going to retard the throttle to the "flight idle" position, and demonstrate an autorotation. I had no idea what an autorotation was, but I was pretty sure an idling engine would not sustain flight.

I was right! As soon as the pilot "chopped" the throttle, I felt like I was in a free-falling elevator. My eyes were glued to the pilot, as I took in his every expression and movement. He didn’t look worried, so I relaxed a little. I still wasn’t absolutely sure that we weren’t going to splatter all over the ground, but I was somewhat reassured by the pilot’s demeanor. He had begun that maneuver at about five thousand feet, so we had plenty of time before impact, if that was what we were going to do.

He casually demonstrated to me what can be done with a helicopter, even without the engine running. I was impressed that he could still control his heading and, trim, and airspeed. The only thing he had no control over was the fact that we were going down! My concern for my longevity increased as our altitude decreased! The pilot still appeared calm. Now that I have many years of experience with helicopters, I know exactly what happened next. At the time, however, I was pretty sure we were doomed!

As we reached about a hundred feet above the ground, he raised the nose of the aircraft slightly to decrease our airspeed. As we continued to descend, he adjusted our point of impact (he used the word, "landing") by adding or reducing airspeed. When we reached about fifty feet, he abruptly raised the nose of the aircraft to "zero" the airspeed. Then he quickly leveled the craft, and using the collective pitch lever, changed the pitch of the rotor blades. The result was a smooth, cushioned landing on the runway. I had experienced harder falls from a bicycle. The pilot then returned the engine to operating RPM, and hovered to the ramp. I got out of the helicopter filled with confidence. I couldn’t wait to get to flight school.

I dreamed about that flight for the remaining few weeks of basic training. Then the day came that we departed for Fort Wolters, Texas and our primary flight training. There were six or seven of us from the same basic training class, and the excitement was overwhelming.

We were somewhat disappointed to learn that we wouldn’t begin flying for about four weeks. We would have a month of ground school before we even got close to a helicopter. We were told that there were two different models of helicopters in use at Fort Wolters, and that we wouldn’t know which we would fly until the last week of ground school. One of the trainers was the H-23, just like the one used in my orientation flight. The other was a Hughes TH-55. Now that is a piece of work! The first time we saw one, one of the guys remarked that it looked like it was made by Mattel. Our vast experience of fifteen minutes flying time was in the other type, so that’s the one we wanted.

I was a little disappointed when we got our aircraft assignments, and I drew the little TH-55 as my trainer. I heard rumors that the controls were much more sensitive than in the H-23, so my apprehension increased. My first day in the cockpit practically shattered my hopes for a career in aviation. I was convinced that my learning to hover that tiny aircraft was utterly impossible. I visualized being thrown out of flight school, and spending the rest of my career in foxholes.

Thank goodness my instructor was determined to make a pilot out of me ... a task akin to making gold out of silly putty. He was persistent, to say the least, and suddenly one day I began to hover the little helicopter as if it was second nature. Things happened pretty fast after that. I actually soloed before my classmates. That was a pretty sobering experience in itself. Remember the term "autorotation" referred to earlier? Well, initially I was cleared to fly solo around the traffic pattern. After a couple of days without destroying the aircraft, I was ready to leave the traffic pattern and actually fly away from the airfield. The catch was that I had to demonstrate three autorotations while flying solo! I cannot describe how difficult it was to roll off that throttle and enter autorotation the first time. I was so scared, I could hardly breathe! My first one was a little bumpy, but no harm done. The next two were just like the book says, and my instructor cleared me to fly away from the field. I was almost overconfident the next day when I left the pattern for the first time all by myself. I flew over some pretty scenic area along the Brazos River, and I was so happy I was almost giddy. We were supposed to remain below two thousand feet in that area, so we wouldn’t interfere with other air traffic. All we needed was a bunch of students playing chicken with civilian aircraft. We also were told to stay away from a nearby nudist colony, and I did ... honest!

Although I was thoroughly enjoying myself, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like a little higher. I scanned the horizon, saw no other aircraft, and decided to climb for just a minute or two. I leveled off at four thousand feet, enjoying the cool air and the great view. I was thinking something like, "it just doesn't get any better than this," when things suddenly got very, very quiet. The engine had stopped running. I was surprised to realize that I had neutralized the rotor blade pitch without even thinking about it ... exactly what I was supposed to do! The most amazing thing to me was that I was not the least bit afraid. I’m sure my confidence was a by-product of my solo autorotations the day before. I was so high, and was descending so slowly, that I was able to select a landing spot that would be convenient for a truck to come in and recover the aircraft. I also spotted a farm house about a mile away, and planned to go there to use the phone. I was unable to contact anyone on the radio. My landing was a thing of beauty ... no damage to the aircraft or my body. (After two tours in Vietnam, I came to believe the old adage that any landing you walk away from is a good one). Darkness was coming rapidly, and I had to decide whether to leave the aircraft and search for help, or stick with it for a couple of hours as the policy demanded.

I felt that there was little chance of anyone flying by and seeing me in the dark, so I started walking down a narrow lane between two fence rows toward the farm house I had seen from the air. It was more dark than twilight, and I heard some noises in the brush nearby. My imagination was running wild. I knew that at any moment some ferocious critter would leap from the bushes and devour me. I had my flight helmet with me, because we had all been threatened with our lives if we lost one. I was walking pretty briskly, and "whistling through the cemetery," when about a dozen huge rats ran across the lane. It really looked like a million of them, and some were in front of me and some were behind. I believe to this day that I could have outrun an Olympic sprinter. I carried my helmet like a football as I ran to the end of the lane, and there stood the farm house ... deserted! I doubt if anyone had lived there for several years. At least I was on a wide farm road, and after consulting my map, started walking toward civilization. A pickup truck came along, and I caught a ride to a house about a mile away. The driver waited while I called Fort Wolters, and then drove me back to the aircraft. I thanked him profusely, but I didn’t mention that I was happiest about not having to walk through the rats again. I waited about thirty minutes inside the aircraft until an instructor came to pick me up in an H-23. Somehow it seemed fitting that I flew back to Fort Wolters in the same type helicopter in which I experienced my first autorotation at Fort Polk.

About eighteen months later, I was flying a much larger, more complex helicopter, and things continued to be pretty exciting. The only large rats I saw then were in the market place!

JPB