A couple of days later, I noticed I was on the flight schedule with the major. I was down as aircraft commander, which I thought a bit odd sin
ce he was also an aircraft commander now. Our takeoff time was 1300 hours, the middle of the day, and that was odd. No mission information, and that was odd. This whole thing was odd. When we got to the aircraft, the crew chief and gunner were there and waiting. There was a marmite can in the back of the aircraft and I asked what it was for. Marmite cans kept food hot or cold, the Army version of an ice chest.
“Don’t know, sir. The CO called down and told me to pick it up in the orderly room and bring it to the aircraft,” the crew chief said. This was the CO’s aircraft.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“Don’t know. I didn’t open it, but it’s heavy.”
About this time, Major Saunders walked up and climbed into the aircraft, taking the copilot seat. I had already performed the preflight, so no need to delay.
“Ah, sir, can you tell me where we’re going and what we’re doing?” I asked.
“Yeah, I can. When we get there,” he said with a smile.
He started the aircraft and I got our clearances to depart to the north. The CO was flying the aircraft and took us to the Special Forces camp up Highway 13 with its dirt airstrip at Chon Thanh. He landed us there and turned to the crew.
“Okay, guys, hop out and take the marmite with you. Mr. Cory and I are going to be doing some work.” As the crew got out, the marmite chest was opened and two very cold sodas came out. One was handed to me and the other to the major, who opened his with a smile. “Let’s go shoot some autorotations. You’re first.”
I took the controls and set myself up for a schoolhouse by-the-book autorotation, which I might add was flawlessly executed with a perfect touchdown.
“My turn,” he said, taking the controls. “Enjoy your soda.”
We had taken beer with us on previous flights and drank a cold one during the day on missions, but only when we were on the ground and waiting. Usually one beer per man, and if we had a half case on board, we’d share it with the grunts on the first lift going into an LZ. They loved it, and our unit got a reputation for being the one that took care of the grunts. Beer was cheap and it brightened up their lives just a bit. On resupply missions into hover holes, it was just as important to get the mail and beer in as it was the water and ammo in our book.
Coming around, the major executed his autorotation but had a bit of a slide at the end. He asked me how I had no slide. I explained that when I made the flare at seventy-five feet, I popped just a touch of collective to the flare, which cut my forward momentum just a touch. He said he wanted to go around and do it again. This time he nailed it.
“Damn, Dan, if that didn’t work. They didn’t teach that in flight school. Okay, take me around for a low-level autorotation.” He turned the aircraft over to me. I took us out low-level and came back on final. There was a fifty-five-gallon drum on the side of the runway about halfway down.
“See that drum, sir? I’ll put us down next to it,” I said while concentrating on my flying. Cutting the throttle, I eased the nose up and glided us to the drum, stopping midship of it.
“My turn.” And he took it. Around we went, and he executed the autorotation but was short of the drum. “What the hell? What did I do wrong?”
“Sir, you did nothing wrong, but you didn’t milk the collective to extend your glide.” And I went into an explanation of how to do it. Around we went again, and he did it better but with a slide, and long this time.
As we were sitting on the strip, bringing the throttle up to full power, he waved to the crew chief, who was lounging under a tree. He held up two fingers, and without a word, the crew chief retrieved two more sodas. It was hot, and we were sweating out any liquid we were taking in.
“Okay, show me loss of tail rotor at a hover. I heard you’ve shown some of the others this technique,” he said.
“Okay, sir, but this isn’t a school-approved maneuver. Me and some of the other ACs thought this through after we saw what happened a couple of weeks ago when Chalk One lost his tail rotor in the LZ,” I said.
“Let’s hear it,” he said as he sipped some soda.
“Okay, you’re at a hover and the tail rotor fails. The nose is going to start coming around to the left, and if you do nothing, it only accelerates in that direction until you’re in an uncontrollable spin, which will result in a rollover when you do hit the ground. You have two choices. The first is to try to maintain the aircraft while pulling power and climbing out as you’re spinning until you get some airspeed to help streamline the aircraft and let you fly it as best you can to a runway for a running landing. Not the best of situations. The second is to stay in the LZ. As the aircraft begins to turn left, roll the throttle off, but don’t chop it as you would for a hovering autorotation as that would accelerate your rotation. With the power coming off and pulling up on the collective, the aircraft won’t have the power to turn the nose or keep itself in the air. You’ll land with a turning nose, but the chance of a rollover is greatly reduced. If it does lean into a rollover, move the cyclic to the right to tip the aircraft to that side. The key is recognizing quickly that you have a tail rotor failure and reacting just as quick,” I explained.
“Okay, show me,” he said, just as calm as could be. Meanwhile I was about to shit in my pants.
“Sir, you know I could screw this one up,” I said timidly.
“You won’t,” he said as he gave me a thumbs-up to get to a hover. As I got to a hover, he jammed the left pedal and the nose started around. Shit. I reacted, and we set down with just one bounce.
“Told you you wouldn’t fuck it up,” he said. “My turn.” And we executed it with him on the controls and me pushing the pedal, although I didn’t jam it to the stops as he had done to me.
I was feeling a bit cocky now. “Sir, you ever done a zero-airspeed one-eighty autorotation?” I asked.
“What the hell is that?” he asked with surprise on his face.
“It would be easier to demonstrate if you’ll allow me,” I said without looking at him. How far was I going to be able to push him? I pulled in power and started climbing. “Suppose you’re at an altitude of a thousand feet and have an engine failure. The only clearing is behind you. You have two options. The first is to fly a hundred and eighty degrees and hope you make it back to that clearing, but as you’re making that turn, you’re losing altitude rapidly, and unless you’re trading altitude for airspeed, you may not make it back to the clearing in a low-level autorotation. The second is to trade airspeed off for altitude while you make a pedal turn and then execute a normal autorotation.”