“Who you flying with today, Mr. Fender?” Dorsey asked.
“Today we have the privilege of flying with Mr. Reid.”
“Isn’t he that crazy dude that thinks he can dance and comes over to the EM club to dance with the brothers?” Kelly asked.
“I think he is,” responded Dorsey, adding, “Brothers say he can’t dance for shit.” About this time, Mr. Reid came walking up, calling Fender’s name as it was still dark and he wasn’t sure which aircraft was Fender’s for the day.
“Over here, Reid,” Fender called out.
Mr. Reid apologized for being the last one to the aircraft and began his preflight right away while Fender checked the rotor head. Once that was completed, the pilots climbed into their seats and strapped in.
“Okay, crew, here’s what we have for today. We’ll be doing some insertions around Loc Ninh for the morning, and if nothing else comes up, we’ll be heading home in the early afternoon. The weather today is going to be crappy, so keep your eyes open for low-flying fast movers. Any questions? If not, let’s get going.” And with that, Mr. Reid started the engine and the crew took up their positions, clearing the aircraft as they pulled out of the revetment and took the runway.
The morning lift missions were routine. No enemy were encountered and no enemy contact was expected. Departing Loc Ninh to return to Lai Khe, everyone heard the mayday call over the radio. The voice had a Vietnamese accent.
“Mayday, mayday, King Bee Two, go down…”
The pilot gave his coordinates, which Fender wrote down. He looked at his map. “Come to a two-twenty heading. This guy isn’t that far away,” Fender said, looking out front and glancing back to his map.
Kelly was the first to spot the UH-1H helicopter lying on its side in a large clearing.
“Mr. Fender, there’s a bird at our ten o’clock,” Kelly reported over the intercom.
“I got it.” Fender took the aircraft, turning sharply towards the downed Huey and establishing a tight orbit over it. Movement could be seen in the cockpit, but no one was in the open ground or approaching the aircraft.
“Okay, it appears that someone is alive down there. How ’bout we go get them?” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yeah,” Kelly responded, with Dorsey echoing his comment.
“Fine by me. Let’s go,” Mr. Reid said. And with that, Fender lowered the collective and began a diving turn towards the downed aircraft. As they continued down, whiffs of smoke appeared. Something was burning. The crash site was littered with stumps and surrounded by tall trees. As they came to the crash site and their approach slowed, small-arms fire from the tree line commenced. Dorsey and Kelly both engaged with the M60 machine guns, silencing some fire only to have fire from another location engage. About thirty feet from the crash, Fender spotted an area big enough to set the aircraft down without shoving a stump into a fuel cell. Upon touching down, Dorsey jumped out and ran to the crash. Kelly, who had silenced the enemy fire on his side of the aircraft, moved over to take Dorsey’s gun and continued to engage the tree line.
Reaching the downed aircraft, Dorsey found four individuals. The crew chief appeared to have a couple of broken bones but was the easiest to retrieve, so Dorsey grabbed him in a fireman carry and ran back to his aircraft. Being a fairly strapping six-foot-one-inch fellow, he had no problem picking up a Vietnamese soldier who was all of five foot two and one hundred pounds and tossing him into the aircraft. Sprinting back to the crash, he retrieved the other non-pilot crew member, who also just had a broken leg.
Returning for the pilots was a different story. Both were hurt and only one was conscious. The copilot was incoherent and babbling in Vietnamese. He had a gash across this throat that was bleeding but not pumping a geyser of blood. When Dorsey got him back to the aircraft, Kelly alternated between keeping direct pressure on the copilot’s throat and firing on the tree line with his M16 rifle. Returning to the crash for the fourth time, Don dragged the unconscious pilot with a nasty leg wound from the burning aircraft and dove back into the UH-1H as Fender was applying power to get out of there. As they were coming out, Kelly and Dorsey were tearing through the four first aid kits on the aircraft when a slapping sound was heard.
“Did we hit a tree?” asked Fender.
“I don’t know, sir,” Kelly responded. “How do the controls feel? I don’t hear any indication that the blade is damaged.”
“You can hear if a blade is damaged?” Mr. Reid asked.
“Yeah, you’ll hear a whistling sound if the skin on the blade is torn or if a bullet passed through it. A lot of times, sound will be your first indication of trouble.
“You want to take it and head for Lai Khe? I’ll call for an ambulance to meet us at the tower and call Maintenance to have someone come look at the aircraft to see that the blades are okay.”
“I’ve got it,” Mr. Reid replied and took the controls. Fender got on the radios and made the appropriate calls. When they landed at Lai Khe, an ambulance was standing by to take the Vietnamese crew. Once they were offloaded, Reid repositioned the aircraft to the Chicken Pen and shut the aircraft down. Captain Head, the maintenance officer, was waiting for them. He noticed the blood and discarded bandages in the cabin.
“What happened?” he asked. Fender went into detail, explaining the rescue and possible blade strike coming out to the crash site. Captain Head examined the blades and found no damage but said he would have the blades tracked to make sure they were aligned.
“Wait here and I’ll send out the guys to track it,” Captain Head indicated, departing to get the equipment and team. Returning to the aircraft, which Kelly and Dorsey were now scrubbing with brushes and water, Captain Head gave Fender the signal to crank the aircraft, which he did. Once the aircraft was at full rpm, the tracking team went to work.
In order to track a main rotor, the main rotor had to be at full rpm, which was 324 rpm. The tracking team had a tall pole with two three-foot-long protruding bars sticking out at a ninety-degree angle on one side, spaced three feet apart, the topmost located at the top of the pole. It looked like a giant letter “F”. A piece of masking tape was positioned between the two horizontal bars. Prior to starting the aircraft, a red magic marker was taped to the end of one rotor blade, pointing outward, and a green marker to the other
. As the rotor turned, the pole with the tape was slowly walked into the rotor blade just enough for the magic markers to make a mark on the tape without breaking the tape. If the two marks lined up, then the rotor blades were considered to be tracking properly. If not, then the aircraft was shut down and adjustments to the rotor blades were made and the whole procedure was done over again until the two marks lined up. In this case, Fender’s rotor blades were tracking. If he had hit something, no damage was done.
“Hey, Mr. Fender—the CO wants to see you and your crew in his office when you finish up here.” It was the 1SG.
“Okay, First Sergeant, we’ll be over in about ten minutes if that’s okay.”