August 10th, 2024
8minute read
Every military pilot gets started when he or she is about six.
I devoured books about World War II aviation when I was a kid.
Flying military aircraft was all I ever wanted to do.
The author stands next to aBell UH-1 Hueyduring flight school. His first training flights in the Rotary-Wing Flight School were made in Hueys.
My ideal was actually aJ-model P-38 Lightning.
That gorgeous twin-engine Art Deco fighter plane is the prettiest machine ever to break the surly bonds of earth.
I wanted to fly, not manage.
At 13 years old, the author stands alongside a Curtiss P-40E Warhawk. An interest in World War II aviation would lead him to the United States Army Rotary-Wing Flight School
Air Force jet aircraft just seemed too complicated.
Embarking upon that path involves putting in a packet with the S1 admin guys.
I have no experience with that, but it sounded hard.
The brightly colored doors of the UH-1 Hueys indicated they were training helicopters. Students looked forward to graduating out of them.
As a commissioned officer, you dont really apply for flight school.
You just need to branch Aviation.
Flight school just happens after that.
Under threat of castration or worse, the author snuck a camera on board his first solo flight in a helicopter.
Other branches include Infantry, Armor, Field Artillery, Military Intelligence, etc.
Once you get close to commissioning you start jockeying for branches.
Branching aviation is fairly competitive.
The author and his compatriots at Fort Rucker pose with a UH-1 Huey training helicopter.
That was a pretty epic phone call.
I consider myself profoundly blessed to have had the opportunity.
The Navy has its own helicopter flight school in Pensacola.
The author sits in a UH-1 Huey helicopter during Rotary-Wing Flight School.
Air Force helicopter pilots trained alongside us at Rucker.
It is called Fort Novosel today because apparently the original was named after a Confederate General named Edmond Rucker.
Fort Rucker is dirty with the distinctive sound of flopping rotor blades pretty much 24/7.
Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters used for training also had bright markings to indicate student pilots.
Signing in there for the first time was an indescribably exciting experience.
However, commissioned officers started out in the Aviation Officer Basic Course.
In my day you were treated like a grunt.
For his last flight in a CH-47 Chinook, the author took his crew to this remote location in Alaska for a reenlistment of an NCO under his command.
Maintenance classes orbited around trucks, and field exercises graded your infantry small unit leadership skills.
I have no idea why that was.
Eventually, however, it was finally time to don the Nomex.
The author always wanted to be a military pilot. This shows him as a 7th-grader leaning against the same sort ofAH-1 Cobra gunshiphe would eventually fly for real many years later.
Foundations
I hit Rucker at a sweet spot.
Before my day, primary flight training was conducted in tiny little piston engine-powered TH-55s.
Afterwards they used turbine-powered TH-67s militarized versions of the Bell Jet Ranger.
Friendships made in tough circumstances can last forever. The author keeps up with many of his old buddies from flight school. He states “They were a truly exceptional group of soldiers.”
Nowadays thats the LUH-72A Lakota.
By contrast, I did my primary flight training in Vietnam-era UH-1H Hueys.
I will be forever grateful for that.
On his day in the U.S. Army, the author took a late night stroll through the hangar. Every Lend-Lease aircraft sent to the Soviet Union during World War II passed through the same hangar.
Helicopters are unbelievably expensive.
Tragically, I got tagged along with nine unfortunate compatriots to start our helicopter journey in a simulator.
They told us we were some special research test case to see if they could make flight school cheaper.
It all turned out OK.
However, Im clearly still a wee bit bitter about that.
As an aside, the Army as an institution does not much care what you want.
I am convinced in retrospect that personal preference really doesnt enter into these decisions.
Ill give you one guess where I ended up.
That ultimately turned out to be a great blessing, but I was fairly put out at the time.
We were all so terribly young.
The commissioned guys were all 21 or 22.
Some of the warrants were younger.
One guy from New York City had never held a drivers license.
We were, to a man, dedicated and enthusiastic, but we had little if any practical sense.
He then gives you the pedals.
As the instructor makes gentle power changes you have to manipulate the pedals to keep the nose properly oriented.
Any change to one thing in a helicopter at a hover affects everything else.
When finally you might manage those two things you get the cyclic.
The cyclic determines your position over the ground.
Mastering all three is called hitting the hover button.
It is a weird, surreal moment when everything just kind of gels.
Before that moment you are sliding all over the place like a drunken chimp.
Eventually you might hover a helicopter without conscious thought.
Our Hueys had bright orange doors, and we despised that.
It was like flying a combat helicopter with a giant Student Driver placard on the side.
Once you began BCS you ditched your colored student baseball cap and donned a camouflage BDU cover.
We still didnt have our wings, but we were beginning to feel like real aviators.
Instrument phase was hard, but it taught us to fly blind in the clouds.
Navigating low-level with a paper map was an acquired skill.
However, some 34 years later I can still orient to cardinal directions under most any circumstances.
Thats kind of cool.
NVGs let you do all the same stuff only in pitch darkness.
Oddly, ACS was mostly how to operate within the national airspace system.
Flying into busy civilian airports is an unnatural act.
This was where we learned to do that.
Ruminations
I finished flight school with about 200 hours in Hueys and then transitioned into CH-47Ds.
The Chinooks also had those big humiliating orange panels on the side.
I eventually flew OH-58s and Snakes as well.
Warrant officers and Lieutenants did not mix much in flight school.
Human beings are tribal.
Always be nice to people.
You never know when you might cross paths later.
One of my classmates crashed a Huey in primary.
You actually solo in pairs with one student flying and the other navigating.
This guy dragged a skid at a stage field and rolled the airplane.
I lost two good friends during my aviation career.
Military flying is dangerous, and we were all young, bulletproof and immortal.
Thats a toxic combination.
One was pilot error.
The other was a catastrophic mechanical failure.
Both left me utterly gutted.
My last flight in an Army helicopter was a wonderful, horrible experience.
Stepping out of that aircraft for the last time back at the hangar I felt like crying.
I will indeed be forever grateful to have had the privilege.
