“Lobo Three-Eight, we have a problem,” I said, the concern in my voice equally obvious. “My cyclic is stiffening up. I may have to put it down.”
“Roger. Let me know what I can do.”
“Linam, the cyc
lic is getting stiff. What causes this?” Linam was climbing from behind his gun and grabbing tools. We were at one thousand feet, flying straight and level. The master caution light and caution panel didn’t indicate anything wrong, such as a hydraulics leak.
“Don’t change course or move anything, Mr. Cory, until I can check it out.” And he started opening up the floor panels. All the flight controls were push-pull tubes in the UH-1H, and they were all located under the floor panels of the aircraft, going back to the transmission well, where they turned upward to the rotor head. Only the tail rotor was operated by a cable attached at some point to the push-pull tubes. Linam had the panels up and was looking below.
“Mr. Cory, we have a problem. The housing for the push-pull tube is shot away, and each time you move the cyclic control, it’s binding the rods.”
“Can you fix it?” I was surprised at how calm I sounded when I was shitting bricks here.
“No, sir. I could hold the tubes up, but then I would be flying the aircraft from here,” he said.
“Well, what do you suggest?”
“Slowly descend and find a clear area that we can do a running landing into. You might be able to raise the nose, but it will be a one-time move, not to be countered by attempting to lower the nose.”
Okay, I can do this. Running landings were practiced, and the further south I flew, the better the terrain for this. A runway would be nice, but the closest was Song Be, and it was laid out east to west whereas I was flying north to south. That ain’t going to work.
“Guys, start looking for an open area.”
“What about the road?” Bruce said. He was now on his third cigarette since I had taken the controls. Damn, he better save a couple of me, I thought. In the distance, we could see a straight stretch, but the trees were close and the sides were lined with bamboo.
“It’s going to have to do. I want everyone up forward and seat belts on. Linam, make sure everyone is strapped in tight.” I explained to Lobo what we were going to do. He started making a mayday call for me, and right away I heard other aircraft responding to the call. He was giving my location and condition. We were approaching the north end of the box, and the road was in front of me as I slowly lowered the collective. Our descent began, but the airspeed remained the same, ninety knots. As we got lower, John pointed out, “We’re going to be taking some tree limbs out.”
“Nothing we can do about it now.”
“Chicken-man One-Niner, Lobo Three-Eight, over.”
“Go, Lobo.”
“Chicken-man, I’m expended, but Blue Max has two aircraft about five minutes out to cover you. I’ll remain on station until they contact you.”
“Roger.”
“Chicken-man One-Niner, Chicken-man One-Six, over.” It was Mike George.
“Talk to him,” I told Bruce.
“Chicken-man One-Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, go.”
“Hey, got yourself in a fine mess this time. I have you in sight and will stand by. You get that thing stopped and get your ass over to my ship. I’m going to land right behind you. You got that?”
“Affirmative, Chicken-man One-Six,” John came back.
As I got to treetop level with the road under the chin bubble, I started easing the nose up. Slowly the airspeed began to bleed off. Eighty knots; seventy knots; sixty knots; and our speed continued to drop. We were slapping the tops of bamboo stalks now—twenty knots. Bamboo stalks were breaking and I could feel the main rotor buffeting as we hit thicker vegetation. I just didn’t want to know what kind of vegetation at this point. Just don’t let us hit a hardwood tree trunk and rip the rotor head off. At twenty knots, the skids touched the ground and we were sliding along, steering with the pedals to maintain a straight line. Broken bamboo was whirling about as if it was in a tornado. As the aircraft came to a stop, I was shutting the engine down while Linam and Diedrich had the guns in hand, with belts of ammo in their arms, and we were un-assing the aircraft as Mike landed right behind me. He didn’t worry about tree limbs. One look at my rotor blades told him that I’d cleared out everything for him as if a giant lawn mower had passed over the bamboo field.
As Mike flew us back to Song Be, Diedrich asked the question that I knew was coming. “Hey, Mr. Sinkey, was that your first time shot down?”
Bruce walked into it. “Yeah, I’ve only been country a couple of months.”
“Thank you, sir, you’re buying the beer tonight.” I considered if I should speak up as it was my first as well. Then Mike spoke up. “Hey, Cory, that’s your first too, isn’t it? There will be lots of free beer tonight, guys.” I started to protest, but to no avail.
Blue Max had taken up a station over us and informed us that they would remain there until a recovery team was inserted from First Battalion, Ninth Cavalry. My aircraft was flown out a couple of hours later under a CH-47. One lone AK-47 round had hit the bottom of the aircraft. Oh, UH-1Hs could be such fragile things.
Back at the brigade TOC, I had to explain what had happened. When I was done, there was a long pause from the brigade commander. “What made you go up there, Mr. Cory?”