Read Online Surprised at Being Alive: An Accidental Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond by Robert F. Curtis - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert F. Curtis
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engineer in training and a gunner—often a grunt who got tired of walking and now owns the two door guns. The Chief owns everything aft of the cockpit when you fly. You know that he can kill you by his actions or inactions. He knows you can kill him and the rest of the crew in a second if you don’t do your job right. But you trust each other because you must, because you will all die together if one of you fails. The missions must get done.
Your copilot climbs to the top of the aircraft to begin his preflight. It’s slick up there from spilled oil and hydraulic fluid and dew in the morning dark; better he falls than you. Besides, you already did your climbing up there while you were a copilot, while you were a “newbie” like he is. Now you are the AC, and as is your right, you preflight the inside and the bottom of the Chinook. Nothing unusual to see, and in ten minutes you are telling the flight engineer about what’s up for the day, or at least as much of it as you can tell by the mission sheet. Not much is required in the way of crew briefing when you fly together for eight or ten or twelve hours every day. The Chief wants to know seats up for internal cargo or seats down for PAX or sling loads starting off, but today, as most days, it’s sling loads all day. The seats are fine in the down position for now.
No missions on the sheet call for Cobra escort, so Ops didn’t know for sure you’d be shot at today. You wouldn’t know either until it happens, maybe not even then. Lots of times in a Chinook, you don’t hear small arms rounds hitting over the whine of the transmissions and the roar of the two turbine engines, so unless someone sees holes starting to appear or the bullets hit something that shows up on the gauges or the master caution panel, you just don’t know.
Now both pilots are in their seats, AC on the left and pilot on the right. You like the left seat because it somehow seems as if you can see better over here on the left. You command from the left seat, the pilot flies from the right. Seats on the Chinook adjust not only up/down and forward/back, but also in tilt. It always seems you start the day out bolt upright and somehow finish it ten hours later in a slump, seat tilted all the way back. Your “chicken plate,” aka “bullet bouncer”—a ceramic-over-steel plate that covers your chest—is not hurting you yet but you know it will before the day is over. It’s heavy and rests on the top of your legs. Around your neck on a dog tag chain is the SOI with all the current radio frequencies and call signs listed. It fits neatly into a pocket on the front of the armor.
Before things get too far along in your start up, you pull your grease pencil out of the pocket on your left upper sleeve and get out the SOI. You write the frequencies and call signs you will need first thing on the lower left portion of the windshield. You copy them from the SOI because they change all the time and it is too hard to remember what your call sign is today—once it was “Rancid Killer,” someone’s idea of a joke no doubt. Looking at the clipboard all ACs carry, you scan the first of today’s missions. The fox mike frequency of the pickup zone (PZ) and their call sign, the call sign of the firebase where you will take the first loads of the day, the artillery clearance frequency, all these things go on the windshield, making it classified at least “Secret,” but you will erase it before you leave the cockpit at the end of the day. When you are finished you put the clipboard down to the right of your seat, next to the center console where you can get it easily. Underneath the mission sheets are pictures of your wife and son covered in acetate to remind you to live through the day. If you crash, you hope the clipboard is destroyed so that the enemy does not get to see your family.
You are in your seat and ready for the start checklist. Four-point seat belt and shoulder harness on over the chicken plate,
Your copilot climbs to the top of the aircraft to begin his preflight. It’s slick up there from spilled oil and hydraulic fluid and dew in the morning dark; better he falls than you. Besides, you already did your climbing up there while you were a copilot, while you were a “newbie” like he is. Now you are the AC, and as is your right, you preflight the inside and the bottom of the Chinook. Nothing unusual to see, and in ten minutes you are telling the flight engineer about what’s up for the day, or at least as much of it as you can tell by the mission sheet. Not much is required in the way of crew briefing when you fly together for eight or ten or twelve hours every day. The Chief wants to know seats up for internal cargo or seats down for PAX or sling loads starting off, but today, as most days, it’s sling loads all day. The seats are fine in the down position for now.
No missions on the sheet call for Cobra escort, so Ops didn’t know for sure you’d be shot at today. You wouldn’t know either until it happens, maybe not even then. Lots of times in a Chinook, you don’t hear small arms rounds hitting over the whine of the transmissions and the roar of the two turbine engines, so unless someone sees holes starting to appear or the bullets hit something that shows up on the gauges or the master caution panel, you just don’t know.
Now both pilots are in their seats, AC on the left and pilot on the right. You like the left seat because it somehow seems as if you can see better over here on the left. You command from the left seat, the pilot flies from the right. Seats on the Chinook adjust not only up/down and forward/back, but also in tilt. It always seems you start the day out bolt upright and somehow finish it ten hours later in a slump, seat tilted all the way back. Your “chicken plate,” aka “bullet bouncer”—a ceramic-over-steel plate that covers your chest—is not hurting you yet but you know it will before the day is over. It’s heavy and rests on the top of your legs. Around your neck on a dog tag chain is the SOI with all the current radio frequencies and call signs listed. It fits neatly into a pocket on the front of the armor.
Before things get too far along in your start up, you pull your grease pencil out of the pocket on your left upper sleeve and get out the SOI. You write the frequencies and call signs you will need first thing on the lower left portion of the windshield. You copy them from the SOI because they change all the time and it is too hard to remember what your call sign is today—once it was “Rancid Killer,” someone’s idea of a joke no doubt. Looking at the clipboard all ACs carry, you scan the first of today’s missions. The fox mike frequency of the pickup zone (PZ) and their call sign, the call sign of the firebase where you will take the first loads of the day, the artillery clearance frequency, all these things go on the windshield, making it classified at least “Secret,” but you will erase it before you leave the cockpit at the end of the day. When you are finished you put the clipboard down to the right of your seat, next to the center console where you can get it easily. Underneath the mission sheets are pictures of your wife and son covered in acetate to remind you to live through the day. If you crash, you hope the clipboard is destroyed so that the enemy does not get to see your family.
You are in your seat and ready for the start checklist. Four-point seat belt and shoulder harness on over the chicken plate,
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