[Vhfcn-l] Training Versus experience

[Arnold B Christensen]

Bill, I never lost any Hooks I crewed including 
all of 71 when myself and my Tech Inspector acted 
as Crewmembers with full flight pay on 3 hooks a 
month output for Air Vietnam. Of course we did 
not miss dinner since we were all living downtown 
Saigon in BEQ's. Only time we came a bit close 
was out in the Crows Foot at that Army Base when 
we came in with 150 rounds of 105 ammo laid out 
on the floor from ramp hinge to the front stacked 
3 high with a 10,000 Cap chain laid out at the 
hinge and two Cargo straps laid down across the 
whole mess.  Came in for a landing which you did 
in a nose high with only aft gear on the ground 
and got it stopped and would get the straps off 
and GIF's would raise the nose higher and we 
would pull the chain out behind all that stuff 
and they would roll down the ramp and onto the 
ground. I will admit that while we operated that 
time it did bother the Chit out of me when we did 
it.  This was before somebody figured out you 
could haul that same 150 rounds from point A to 
point B if people loaded them in Slingloads and 
we hauled them out and set them down where the 
Arty wanted them.  When discovered how good that 
worked they would make a piggy back load which 
was a sling load of the 105 How. and strapped to 
it was a "piggy back load" of ammo. As I remember 
the ammo load was about 80 rounds. Several of 
those rounds were often armed so that when we 
dropped them on "the guy with the vest on", they 
were immediately operational.  Before we got into 
sling loading almost everything that needed to be 
moved we got ready to drop off a internal load 
once again at the Crows Foot and as we came to a 
flare the #2 engine went into compressor 
stalls.  I don't know about what a Huey sounds 
like when it goes into compressor stalls but a 
Chinook engine sounds like a crazy infantry guy 
"galloping" a .50 Cal gun.  The 15th TC came out 
because it did not sound like a normal Compressor 
stall with all sorts of vibrations and banging 
back in the rear next to the #2 that we had never 
heard before.  Turned out the Sprag Clutch 
between the engine and the Engine Xsmn had failed 
and busted up and the engine ingested metal 
parts. Was a mess and was getting late and so 
decision was made to fly single engine back to 
our base camp in An Khe.  We did have a Hook 
flying wing position escorting us back. Replaced 
the engine and engine transmission and were ready to go the next morning.

I will say this about how many ships were lost... 
I never heard of Huey or any other type 
helicopter being lost to fire from cooking a 
meal.  We did loose many to being shot down or 
crew error.  On of the jobs us Hookers had was to 
go out and sling load it back home for repair 
there or eventually transport back to Corpus 
Christi, TX or Pensecola Navel Air Station to be 
fixed up and flown again.   I know that because 
in 73 I was the Chief Tech Insp at the 507 Trans 
Co (General Support) and had two Tech Inspectors 
at Corpus TDY to do final acceptance inspections 
on Hueys coming out of major fixing.  I myself 
made a couple of trips to Pensecola with the 
Quality Officer and one other CWO to do 
acceptance inspections on them before crews were 
called to come and pick them up. All of that was 
because of the condition of Hueys that we were 
receiving back in Ft Campbell. But to get back to 
the beginning or your note to me...We had on my 
ship up by the forward door 23 or more Huey 
silhouettes painted on the skin in just 7 
months.  Other hook crews began to copy what we 
were doing. Someplace there is a record of Hueys, 
and 13's that were recovered by the 228th Assault 
Support Battalion which btw consisted of 3 Hook 
Companies of 16 aircraft each.

Chris the Bigfoot


At 08:16 PM 12/31/2018, you wrote:
>Well all I can say it’s no wonder we lost so 
>many aircraft. I only destroyed one. Bill Confer
> > On Dec 31, 2018, at 4:38 PM, Arnold B 
> Christensen via Vhfcn-l <vhfcn-l at vhfcn.org> wrote:
> >
> > I get it Roger.  I assume that no Navy 
> Helicopter ever allowed its crew to have small 
> campfires on old chicken plates.  That was one 
> of the differences between Hueys and Hooks.  Us 
> hookers took the survival kit single burner 
> stop out of the kit and sat down on the ramp 
> and cooked up our C Rats.  Did not try to start 
> a campfire in the chicken plates.   Pump up the 
> single burner and turn it on and quickly went 
> from a yellow flame to a hot blue flame.  It 
> was the life being a Hooker.  We also could get 
> a fresh cup of coffee out of our percolator 
> plugged into the tracker power outlet.  110 AC 
> Volts with 400 Cycles.  Do not plug your elect 
> razor into that outlet because it would last just a second or two!
> > Foot
> >
> > 11:31 AM 12/31/2018, Roger W. Ek via Vhfcn-l wrote:
> >> > On Dec 31, 2018, at 11:00 AM, PAUL 
> BIELECKI via Vhfcn-l <vhfcn-l at vhfcn.org> 
> wrote: > > Pilots, unfortunately, have been 
> losing many of the skills we had been taught or 
> needed to acquire as pilots in Vietnam and 
> other early Army Aviation points of station if 
> we were to survive. I landed at Moc Hoa during 
> the rainy season. The entire base was very flat 
> and under 6 to 10 inches of water. They were 
> about ready to leave for the worst of the rainy 
> season. A flight of D and H-Models was beside 
> the runway and troops were heating C-rats over 
> open fires IN THE AIRCRAFT. They had small 
> campfires in old chicken plates. At that moment 
> I realized the fundamental difference between 
> Army Aviation and Naval Aviation. Fast forward 
> to 1992. We lost some helicopters in “the 
> sandbox” because the lessons we learned 
> about sand, hot weather, density altitude and 
> tactics were forgotten in the interim quarter 
> century from 1967 to 1992. Now it has been 
> another quarter century from 1992 to the 
> present. Even civilian light planes have glass 
> cockpits and today’s civilian flight 
> instructors do not tech flying in beta, 
> incipient stall clues or skidded turn stalls 
> (which can be violent). My Uncle Martin was a 
> pilot in the Pacific in WWII. He took me for my 
> first flight in 1946 in a Taylorcraft with a 
> steel strap for the tail skid. He was a stick 
> and rudder pilot and a life long flight 
> instructor. 
> ======================================================== 
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