An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam (Undaunted Valor 1)

“Dog-meat Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Dog-meat Six India. Over.”

“Dog-meat Six, Chicken-man One-Niner is inbound to your location. Pop smoke.”

“Roger, Chicken-man, smoke out.” We started looking for smoke that would give me their exact location. Grandpa saw it first, but we didn’t see a place to land. As we made a pass over the smoke, Grandpa said, “I have someone on the ground.”

“Dog-meat Six, I have green smoke.”

“Affirmative, Chicken-man.”

“Roger, coming around,” I answered back.

“Grandpa, you saw someone on the ground?” I asked him.

“Yeah, next to the smoke grenade. The grenade is in the bottom of a bomb crater.”

“Okay, I’ll come around again and look for it.” Crap, we’re going down a bomb crater for this trip. On the second pass, I saw it out my side of the aircraft. Oh shit, it is a bomb crater, and not a daisy cutter either. The daisy cutter bomb was designed to clear out everything for a helicopter to land. It was a fifteen-thousand-pound bomb with chain welded to the outside, dropped by a C-130 cargo plane. Once dropped, a parachute deployed, allowing for a slow descent of the bomb. At about fifteen feet from the ground it would detonate, cleaning out a very nice landing zone of one helicopter and no crater. The trees all appeared to be about the same height around this bomb crater, and the wind was blowing north to south, but lightly. Still, in an airplane or a helicopter, you want to land into the wind as it allows for slower speed and increase lift, which means less power used. Power is critical at times like this. Several factors come into play. Using pedals can increase or decrease power, as pressing the pedal in one direction reduces the amount of power needed while pressing the pedals in the other direction increases the amount of power needed. Left pedal takes less and right pedal takes more as it brings the tail against the rotation of the rotor head. Unchecked, the natural tendency of the tail is to swing to the right.

As I made our approach and slowed the aircraft to a hover into what wind there was, I checked my power and all was good. Looking down through the chin bubble, I thought someone had to be kidding me, and I eased the aircraft forward at a hover. I was at almost max power.

“Okay, guys, talk me down.”

“You have to bring the tail around to the left about ninety degrees,” Lovelace said.

Peters responded, “Tail clear left.”

I slowly started the pedal turn, applying more power. I was at max power now and continuing to turn. The tail was fighting me in the wind and the engine was creeping above max power limits.

“You’re at forty percent N1,” Grandpa said. We weren’t even halfway through the turn. Shit. I brought the nose back around to the wind and flew out of the hole.

“We need to relook this one. Lovelace, Peters, did you see lower trees back there around the hole that we can come in over?”

“The trees look a bit lower on the north side, sir, but you’re going to have a tailwind up the ass,” Lovelace told me.

“Okay, let’s try that. Might be better than getting in and having to turn it.” I set the approach up again, coming in from the opposite direction. As I came in over the hole, the tail boom was dancing with the wind trying to turn us. Before I came to a complete stop, I had the cyclic back hard, attempting to arrest our forward motion, and I was at full power. This was not working, and I flew us out.

“Dog-meat Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Dog-meat Six India.”

“Dog-meat Six, we got to lighten the load. The wind is just playing hell with a hover. Going to base and will drop some load and be back.”

“Roger, Chicken-man. Dog-meat Six India out.”

“Guys, when we get back to the log pad, drop fifteen cans off and we’ll try with just that. That should lighten us up by about five hundred pounds. Plus with the fuel burn, we should be okay.” After unloading, we headed back out.

“Dog-meat Six, Chicken-man One-Niner en route.”

“Roger, Chicken-man, do you want smoke?”

“Affirmative, I want to see what the wind is doing.”

“Roger, smoke out.”

“Roger, I have red smoke.”

“Affirmative.” The smoke was drifting up but dissipating quickly when it reached the top of the trees. Indications were that it was coming from the north and blowing south.