3500 landings. That’s my best guess of landings per year flying logistical resupply. As I mentioned in a previous posting, 60% or so of our flying hours were spent like an Amazon Prime delivery truck.
It was single ship time and totally in direct combat support of the men on the ground. The days were long but rewarding and at the end of the day we headed back to our base, sat down for dinner in a mess hall, had a hot shower, and relax with a cold beverage while watching the scenery from a lawn chair positioned on the roof of our platoon bunker. The soldiers we supported in the field that day were dug in for the night with sentries posted and perimeter armed with trip flares and claymore mines. I’m pretty sure they weren't relaxing with cold beverages. For the helicopter crews, life was good.
At zero dark thirty (the movie got that expression from us), the Operations Duty Sergeant would come into our tent and wake up any pilots slated for Logistical Resupply (Log) missions that day. At that early hour he got a lot of verbal abuse and maybe a few easy to reach projectiles like boots thrown in his direction. I would sit on the edge of my bed for a few moments while I gathered what few wits I had, then got dressed. The boots were the worst thing to put on in the dark. Even though Army regulations forbade it, most of us spent some free time and Piastres (South Vietnamese currency) in a nearby village having someone sew zippers in the boots. After getting fully dressed and strapped western style with a local village produced holster, I headed to the Operations tent for a fresh cup of coffee and a look at the missions board for aircraft tail number, parking spot, crew names and the “Report To” unit. This information was given to the Aircraft Commander (AC) on a little slip of onion skin paper. From there to the mess tent for breakfast, back to my home tent (which I will call my AO) to pick up my gear including helmet bag, chest protector, flashlight, and knee clipboard with my AO (area of operation) map. then head for the assigned aircraft. For my photographer friends it is now the Blue Hour, a couple of dozen minutes or so before sunrise.
The Crew Chief and Gunner are already there. They untied the main rotor, pulled all the protective covers (engine inlet, pitot tube), opened engine cowling and inspection doors, and mounted their machine guns. As we approach, the morning greetings are exchanged and the Crew Chief hands the AC the log book open to the inspection/deficiencies page as the pilot climbs up on the roof and checks out the engine inlet filters, main rotor hub, all its wear points and of course the Jesus nut. The AC talks to the Crew Chief about the deficiencies then checks engine/transmission fluid levels, safety-wired nuts, tail boom attaching bolts, and of course the tail rotor. Most people don’t know this; unlike a fixed wing aircraft, helicopters don’t want to fly. It takes the iron will of the crew to force it into the air and make thousands of parts fly close formation civilly with each other for hours on end.
Enough of the boring stuff. We are buckled in, cranked up, and with tower clearance, we head for the log pad of the grunt battalion we will be working for this day. The first sign of life at the battalion log pad we greet is a flight line mule loaded with mermite cans filled with all the hot breakfast food you would find at a luxury hotel buffet.
In this photo stolen from a website shows a typical first load of the day out to one of the field units. Those rectangular cans above the rear wheel and below the bags are called mermite cans and are insulated units with three compartments inside. These will contain a hot breakfast served buffet style.
Scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon, hot cakes, hot coffee, and all the usual mess hall fare. Life is good. As an anecdote, occasionally a Marine unit would be attached to the 1st Cavalry for a given mission. When that happened, they were treated exactly the same as a Cav trooper in that we would bring three hots a day. I heard from someone who heard from someone else that some Marine commented that had he known that the Army served three hots a day while in the field they would have joined the Army instead of the Corps. Just saying.
Battalions were usually made up of four rifle companies and if all four were in the field, we made several trips first thing in the morning at sunrise. We would drop off their breakfast, mail, and whatever else the Battalion S4 (supply department) sent. When that round of deliveries was complete, we brought back their packs and other non-essential stuff they did not need to hump the bush that day. This usually happened by sling load.
So how did we remain as safe as possible during the day while playing truck driver. These units were in the field for a reason, combat. We were a single ship flying around a war zone with no lines between us and the enemy. To begin with, we had several radios at our disposal. We had two FM tactical radios, one tuned into the ground unit we were supporting and the other tuned in to our company operations. We also had a UHF radio tuned to our area airfield and on that same radio we monitored “Guard” which is the international emergency frequency. If we had an emergency whether caused by enemy action or mechanical failure, we could talk to a lot of people very quickly. Also, we normally flew at 1500 feet above the ground, which even at our slow speed we were essentially out of range for accurate small arms fire. I’ll talk anti-aircraft weapons including their 12.7mm (.51 caliber) machine gun at another time. Lastly, we had processes tried and true. These processes kept us from landing at an enemy location (colored smoke and mirrors). The enemy often monitored our tactical frequencies. We also tried when possible not to fly in a predictable way (sometimes the terrain or wind conditions was an enemy).
Before I give you a sample scenario, I’m going to talk about piloting skills that are perfected by performing log missions. I mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry the term AO (area of operation). This term officially is used to describe our location’s tactical area which typically covers about a 15 or 20 mile radius from our main camp. What this means is if we fly at 60 knots climbing/descending and 80 knots enroute, everything in our AO is a flight of 15 minutes or less. If we visit every field unit 6 to 10 times a day, we rack up around 40 takeoff and landings a day. Commercial Airline pilots depending on whether they fly commuter or long haul make from 1 to 5 landings a day. Also, the landings that a helicopter makes are difficult in that they are confined areas, pinnacles, elephant grass, slopes, crosswinds, tailwinds, and so on. Building incredible piloting skills comes with flying log in combat over jungle terrain.
Another big skill building issue is aircraft loading and control with fairly large changes in CG (center of gravity). Hueys burn about 400 pounds of fuel an hour and we typically refueled every hour and a half to two hours. The first load after refueling makes steep approaches in tight landing zones - rather dangerous if you don’t have skills. Fortunately, you get a lot of practice under the supervision of a very skilled AC as you fly your mission.
Now the scenario. All unit call signs and their associated FM frequencies are listed in a little classified booklet called an SOI (Signal Operating Instructions) that we tie to the top button of our fatigue shirts with a ball chain similar to the one that holds our dog tags. We use our unit call sign which in this case will be “Silent Preacher” and we attach the last 3 digits of the aircraft tail number. So, for this scenario, we will be flying Bill Quigley’s #785. Also in the 1st Cavalry Division, all unit commanders had the number 6 in their call sign. For example, the units commanding officer (using Grey Ghost for instance as their unit call sign) was “Grey Ghost 6”. The first platoon leader was the “16”, the 2nd platoon leader was the “26” and so on. The CO (Commanding Officer) had a radio man that stuck to him like glue and the CO was always our first contact.
In our scenario we will be enroute to Grey Ghost; I will be the Aircraft Commander on the radios and the pilot is flying. We are loaded with breakfast, mail, and a couple of FNG’s joining the unit.
“Ghost 6, this is Preacher 785 inbound about 10 klicks out with breakfast, looking for your smoke”.
“Roger that Preacher, popping smoke”, the CO responded.
At this point we have to identify the color of the smoke. If we are right in our response, then the security handshake has taken place and we know that it is the unit we are resupplying and not an enemy unit trying to trick us in. To break up the monotony of this process, we often respond with a reference to the color rather than the color itself.
I respond with “Grey Ghost, I’ve got your goofy grape.
“Roger that. Preacher”.
With that we use the smoke to tell us the wind condition and we do a visual inspection of the landing area and pick an approach, keeping in mind that we are heavy with fuel and cargo.
On final approach we are watching the ground guide and the gunner and crew chief are on the machine guns focused on possible enemy locations for signs of activity. As we touch down, 2 or 3 grunts on either side of the aircraft start unloading us. And of course, the FNGs jump off in their brand-new jungle fatigues and packs. Once we are unloaded, they throw odds and ends in the cargo bay that they are sending back to Battalion as well as any soldiers going back for whatever reason.
We head back to reload for the next sortie and so on.
We will make about 6 trips each day for every unit in that battalion. At the same time we are flying log that day, we may be pulled off the mission to join a ready reaction force to combat assault, extract a unit, do a medivac, run some VIP somewhere, or whatever. Many stories to follow now that the bread and butter of being an Army Helicopter pilot is written on these pages.
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