From the Hornets to the Crusaders

My plan here had been to tell the tale in a chronological order from my arrival in Vietnam to my departure (DEROS). I have violated that rule on a couple of occasions because, well, I could. For the most part I will continue along that road, but sometimes will either jump forward or fall backward to cover an interesting tale.

It was in March that the command staff, meaning the company commanders and the battalion commander realized that there was a problem looming on the horizon. The Crusaders, that is, the 187^th Assault Helicopter Company, would see many of its senior pilots, meaning the aircraft commanders, rotating home in a short time. To avoid that, some of the pilots were moved around. I was one of those.

I was told that I would be moving up to the Crusaders from the Hornets and by moving up, I mean going from a point about thirty miles from Saigon to Tay Ninh, which was closer to Cambodia and a little farther north.

I arrived there without much in the way of fan fair. I had packed my duffle bag, stuffed some other, person items in a satchel, climbed into the back of a Huey, and was flown to Tay Ninh. I really don’t remember much about that but I must have reported to the company commander and was assigned to the first platoon.

The Crusader's Officers Club. Notice the sign on the right that suggests that if you

wear your hat in the club, you must buy the bar a round of drinks. I point this out because 

it is a rule that is routinely ignored on those TV shows that feature an officer's club. 

Because I was now a new guy, not in Vietnam, just to the unit, I was again a Peter Pilot, meaning that I wasn’t an aircraft commander. I flew with the first platoon’s ACs on a number of occasions and again, don’t remember much about that. One of the ACs was a heavy smoker and had a habit of engaging the forced trim on the cyclic. That meant that if you let go of it, for whatever reason, it would return to the position that put the aircraft in a climbing right turn. The theory, I think, was that if the pilot who had actual control of the aircraft was suddenly incapable of flying it, the helicopter would not quickly spin out of control, but would enter a shallow climb, giving the surviving pilot a chance to grab the controls.

It also meant that you had to fight the cyclic the whole time because it wanted to enter that climbing turn. Rather than slight pressure to move the cyclic, it required a little more effort. I thought of it as annoying. It made the task more difficult and I know of no case in which using the forced trim in that fashion saved anything. I did find a way to defeat it so that flying wasn’t as strenuous as it had been.

The first platoon had a scheduling board and the platoon leader would put up the aircraft assignments for the next day on that board including which AC and pilot in which aircraft. One day, after about a week or so, I checked the board and didn’t see my name in the pilot slot. I thought I had the next day off and as I turned, I though that I did see my name. I looked back and found that I was assigned as the AC of Spare Two.

Each day two “spare” aircraft were assigned. Spare One, would be pre-flighted and ready to go if needed. If the flight was staging somewhere away from Tay Ninh and there was an airfield or location closer to the area of the day’s operations, Spare One, would locate there. If not needed, when the flight was released, Spare One returned to Tay Ninh if it had flown anywhere else.

Spare Two was the aircraft that would replace Spare One, if Spare One was called up to take a slot in the flight. In other words, it was fairly unlikely that Spare Two would be flying and all you had to do was remain in the company area, sleeping, reading, playing cards or whatever in case you had to replace Spare One. It wasn’t much of an assignment, but then I was now the AC of Spare Two for the next day.

There had been no announcement that I was now an AC. No one said a word to me about it. No ceremony, such as we had had at the Hornets when I was made an AC there. Just my name on the scheduling board in the left-hand slot for the AC rather than the right-hand slot for the pilot.

Of course, the next day, my name moved up and I was assigned to one of the chalk positions in the flight.  I don’t remember where it was because, I don’t remember if we had the lead or trail part of the flight, and I don’t remember if I was assigned an aircraft in the middle of those positions.

I do remember that I was assigned an aircraft, and if it was available, then that was the aircraft I would fly. If it wasn’t, then I would fly another, such as the one that I blew up on a land mine. And I had a crew, or rather, there was a crew chief and door gunner assigned to my aircraft as well. We all flew together most of the time.

For a little bit of foreshadowing, which we’ll get to later, their plan to prevent a number of the ACs leaving the company about the same didn’t work out.