Army
Aviation is a strange branch because of some of the ways it operates. For
example, the aircraft commander is not always the senior officer on board the helicopter.
In Vietnam, appointment was based, not on rank or seniority but on experience
and time in-country. Before a pilot was considered for aircraft commander, he
needed to have, at least, 300 hundred hours of flight time in Vietnam. That was
coupled to the more than 200 hours in flight school. In other words, before
even being considered, a pilot had more than 500 hours of flight time.
I
mention all this because, as a warrant officer (W-1, the lowest officer grade),
I often flew with a first lieutenant, and rarely with a captain, as my
co-pilot. Such was the case when I had the ass and trash mission of hauling a
colonel around so that he could inspect the fire support bases and other units
assigned to his command.
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| The back end of a Huey and the Crew Chief near the machine gun. |
I
don’t remember if I was flying with the Hornets or the Crusaders at the time.
My co-pilot was a first lieutenant who had not reached the 300 hours necessary
to be considered for promotion to aircraft commander. This meant, that in
operations involving the aircraft and crew, and all the time we were airborne,
I was in command. In fact, the colonel, who outranked both of us by a great
deal was under my command in operations involving the aircraft, something he
didn’t understand.
When
he first showed up, with his command sergeant major, he made it a point to
ignore me and speak with the commissioned officer member of the crew. I just
stood there and when the colonel finished his spiel, the lieutenant pointed to
me and said, “You’ll have to tell him. He’s the aircraft commander.”
Given
I was only 19, I suppose that I looked way too young to be an Army pilot, let
alone the aircraft commander, but that’s the way it was. The colonel asked if I
understood what he wanted and I said, “Yes, sir.” I mean, I wasn’t so dumb that
I would antagonize a colonel because he didn’t understand Army Aviation.
We
got everyone on board and strapped in, fired up the helicopter, and then took
off. We landed at a base camp. The colonel jumped out without a word to us and
headed off to find the local company or battalion commander. We shut down and
waited with the aircraft.
When
the colonel returned, he began to tell the lieutenant where he wanted to go
next, but the lieutenant interrupted and said, “He’s the aircraft commander.
You need to talk to him.”
The
colonel looked at me, pointed at his map and said that was where he wanted to
go. Once he was onboard, we started the aircraft, took off and found the fire
support base. These were smaller than the base camps, were more compact, with
the helipad outside the wire. Not the safest place to be.
As
I, with the rest of the crew, was walking into the fire base, the sergeant
major thought maybe we should wait at the aircraft. I said, probably in a snotty,
teenaged way, “Why? He’s not going anywhere without us.” Besides, even though
he was at the top of the NCO grades and outranked every enlisted man around, I
still outranked him… probably a situation that didn’t fill him with joy.
When
the colonel returned, we played the aircraft commander game again with him
talking to the lieutenant and then being told that he’d have to talk to me. Not
a very good way to build confidence in one another.
We
took off and the lieutenant was flying. I saw an aircraft out to the left,
above us and far away. The lieutenant caught a glimpse of it, thought it was
much closer and on a collision course. He took immediate but unnecessary, abrupt
evasive action.
I
told him to ease up. We weren’t in danger. The colonel was mad, thought we’d
done it to annoy him and I confess, had I thought of it, I just might have done
something like that… professional or not.
When
we landed at the last stop and were almost rid of the colonel, he let me know
that he didn’t like the sudden dive. I mentioned the lieutenant had thought we
were too close to another aircraft, but, of course, the colonel wouldn’t
listen.
Later,
when we returned to our home base, the company commander asked me what
happened. He told me the colonel had filed a bad mission report. I said, “Well,
I’d like to file a bad passenger report.” Of course, there was no such thing.
However, I think, once the CO understood the situation, that he no longer cared
about it. I never heard another word.
