The Stovebolt Site Forums The Side Lot Legion Hall Army Aviator

Hello to all my veteran brothers and sisters. Just introducing myself.

My name is Thomas Clark, CW4 retired. I enlisted for Rotary Wing Flight School on 29 MAR 68. Learned to fly on the Bell OH-13E & G (Bell 47). Completed flight school in JUN 69 and deployed to Vietnam in July. Served with The Ghost Riders, Co A/158 AHB, 101st Airborne Div, Camp Evans, Northern I Corp. Flew UH-1H Hueys for a year, and then was reassigned to Germany flying Hueys for a Pershing Missile Battalion. Flew out of Muttlangen AAF for a year, and then was released from active duty. Entered the USAR that same day.

Served with the ARNG and USAR in several states, flying UH-1H, CH-47, OH-6A, and AH-1S, T, ST, and F. I retired in JUN 2008. Welcome home to all of you. Much Respect.

Thomas (Top Cat) Clark
CW4, AVN
USAR ret.

Thanks for checking in with us, Top Cat!! HOO AH!!

My closest cousin is a retired Army CWO-5 OH-6 pilot and civilian Ft Rucker instructor.

Spent 34 years myself mostly supporting the R/W community in uniform and as a civil servant -- mostly supporting the Marine Corps AH-1/UH-1, CH-53, VH-3 and Navy MH-60 R/S programs at NAVAIR. I've spent time at Mother Rucker myself (anyone who is *anyone* in R/W has spent time at Mother Rucker, no matter what uniform they wear...). Heck, I've even served a stint on the Joint Working group for the Future Vertical Lifter at the Pentagon. I have great affinity and respect for you Army R/W guys! Even if you don't see a need for rotor brakes, auto blade folding and folding tailbooms ... (From the sea!)

VL Rocks!

Welcome to Stovebolt! Relax, you're home now!

Don't you need to be a certifiable nutcase to climb into something with the wings moving faster than the fuselage? Glad you guys are on our side!
Welcome Home from a USAF vet from the same basic time frame- - - -67 to 75!
Jerry

Um ... yeah. So what's your point? You guys land and then stop ... and you question *our* mental stability??




Speaking of F/W versus R/W, Vietnam and all of it ... you guys should ask me about my old friend Mark and his participation in a truly nutty Navy experiment during Vietnam to cross train F-4 and CH-46 pilots ...

Rotorheads and jet jockeys- - - - -now, what could go wrong with that combination? LOL!
Jerry

John

Hello to you and your cousin.

I spent some 7 years as an OH6A IP, then moved to Cobras. Actually, I enjoyed the OH6A more than the Cobra. Sorta the difference between a true sports car, and a souped up, high performance, yet lethal, delivery truck. Of course my most enduring memories remain with the UH1H Huey, in Vietnam. The things we did there, in support of our brothers and sisters, were well worth the risks we took, and the personal experiences are the reward of a lifetime.

For those who may wonder about helicopters, the UH1H "Huey" that I flew in Vietnam, Germany, and stateside, was perhaps the most reliable, dependable, flyable and useful tool, deployed in that conflict. The Huey was designed to carry eleven passengers and two pilots. I have had as many as 34 people aboard my Huey in combat, and under fire. There were perhaps 45 or more on or in the aircraft when it left the ground. That number was whittled down to 30 ARVN and our crew of four Americans, after we went through the trees. Probably exceeded every last operating limitation associated with power, torque, and RPM but, we all survived. That was just some of what the Huey was capable of delivering, from her 1400+ shaft horsepower Lycoming gas turbine, when you asked her nicely.

Welcome home to all my brothers and sisters, from every era.

Top Cat

Jerry

Some would say certifiable. I prefer just plan nuts.

Yet ... I would not have traded my position as an Army helicopter pilot, for any other aircraft in the entire military inventory. One only had to look once, upon the face of someone you had just plucked out the jaws of death, to know that you had chosen the right profession. Something the attack pilot never gets to experience.

We all did our best at what we did. We are all to be honored for stepping up.

Top Cat

TopCat... Huey stories ...

Anyway, here's the last one I worked with. A UH-1N that my team at the Naval Air Warfare Center (Pax River) used as an avionics test bed and development tool. It was a littlemore advanced than an H ... but not much... Different radios a multi-function display (or three ...) the BriteStar FLIR system... and a bunch of racks in the back for mounting whatever needed to go fly. Like most of the rest of that team, we had come out of the H-1 Program Office so we had been bringing the AH-1Z and the UH-1Y online and sundowning the AH-1W's and the UH-1N's. This N was one of the last N's in service. Most of the USMC N's were given to the Air Force. This particular N was assigned to us. When we retired it, it went to the National Museum of the Marine Corps where it is now on display in the Desert Storm section. Chris (HAC in the pictures) and I hatched a plan to fly it to Quantico (about a 15-20 minute hop from Pax) but like a lot of cool ideas, it got squashed -- The Fleet needed to harvest some things off of it that made it non-flyable. So it got trucked instead.

But I did get to host "America's Huey," the UH-1H that got flown to the Smithsonian. We had that on our flightline at the test squadron (HX-21) for the weekend. We were one of the last stops before the National Mall. I got some nice shots of the three Hueys together -- the H, N and Y models. I'll look for those.

My cousin is a psychopath -- his idea of "fun" is backing into a tree line.

Back to the R/W story ...

So during Vietnam, the Navy was experiencing a very high loss rate among CH-46 and F-4 pilots. Some admiral cooked up an idea where they would cross train the pilots. My friend Mark was the CH-46 pilot selected for the test project. The goal was to see how difficult it would be to train a helo guy to carrier qual (daylight) in an F-4 and for a fighter jock to essentially do the same thing in a '46. Mark day qualed no problem. Said the F-4 was a handful but kinda fun. The F-4 pilot couldn't even master a stable hover in a wide open field so they never took him anywhere near a ship. They scrapped the whole idea. Mark got to take that same admiral (a fighter guy, btw) up in the '46 one day. The admiral had the controls and remarked on the IC that it was pretty easy. After he said that, Mark nonchalantly reached down and turned the SCAS off (auto stabilization) while the Admiral was flying. The '46 immediately swapped ends (did a 360). Mark took the controls back and straitened the aircraft out. The admiral pretty much shut up after that.

Semper Fi,
John

John

Turning off the SCAS in the 47 would yield the same basic result. It was flyable but, it was a real handful to keep pionted straight and level. Most later era tandem rotor helicopters would prefer to become two big props. The SCAS was effective in controlling that tendency.


Tom

Hmmmmm- - - - - -sort of like watching some of the trainees at Castle AFB California who were transitioning from T-38's to B-52's! A BUF has four main landing gear trucks, plus a tip protector on each wingtip. I swear I've seen a few rookies land that big monster one gear at a time! We could always tell when the instructor pilot was flying the approach! The B52D that's on display at the USAF museum at Wright Patterson AFB is one I worked on at Okinawa in the early 1970's. I don't remember if I actually flew on it, but I remembered the tail number when I took my Marine grandson to visit the museum. Part of the display is a diagram of all the battle damage the bird got- - - -I remember watching some of those patches getting applied.
Jerry

Jerry

There is a "learnimg curve" in transitioning from a small, lighter aircraft, into a larger heavier, and more powerful airframe. In general, it's not unlike flying at higher speeds. Things take a bit more time and distance to respond to control inputs, and the pilot must be out ahead of the aircraft in his planning and anticipation. The other factor tends to be gaining a sense of the airspace your aircraft occupies. You have to learn "the edges of your envelope", in order to make sure you don't run into anything or anyone. Aside from these factors, it's mostly operating limits, emergency procedures, and mission requirements. Transitioning is always a fun time and a challenge to your skills, knowledge, and abilities.

I do recall the thrill of attempting to hover a helicopter for the first time back in flight school, at Fort Walters, TX. Flying a helicopter in level flight is not unlike flying a fixed wing. The challenge comes when you have to hover the thing. Imagine some 20 Bell 47 helicopters, operated by student pilots, under the supervision of an instructor pilot, all occupying a field of maybe 20 acres. Each is executing massive pendular swings in all directions, while trying to keep the nose in front of them with pedals, the RPM within limits using a reverse motor cycle type throttle on the end of the collective control stick which controls altitude, and stay over one spot with the cyclic stick. All while trying your best to find that "sweet spot", where the damned thing will sit still and behave. It does come to you but, it can get a bit "sporty" while you're learning in a confined space. Oh and, you're doing this in front of ALL of your classmates, some of whom are holding up cards with numbers from 1 to 10.

You do eventually master the task, and then solo the helicopter. If you do not, it's off to the infantry. But then, I would not trade one second of the experience for a million dollars, even today. It is a privilege for which I will always be grateful.

Tom

When heavy with fuel, a BUF tended to take off back wheels first. If you've never seen one land in a high crosswind take a look at this video.

The D models with the water injection engines we flew from Okinawa had a hard time getting airborne with full fuel and a heavy bomb load. I heard one pilot remark "This thing's like a buzzard- - - -gotta flap the wings real hard to get off the ground!" The wingtips would move 22 feet from taxi position to inflight. For a while they were leaving Okinawa with 1000 pound bombs internal and 750's under the wings, instead of the normal load of 34 750's internal and 24 500's on the external racks. That required taking off with half a fuel load and topping off from a tanker enroute to the target of the day. Those thousand pounders were left over from Korea, and some of them were so rusty the ID stripes on the nose of the bomb were gone- - - -they weren't exactly sure what was inside. They figured most of them would go off, or at least make a big crater when they hit if they didn't explode!
Jerry

HEY!! You Air Force fixed wing buzzards go start your own thread. Only rotor heads allowed in this one.

Don't make me call the SgtMaj in here ...

John, you're starting to sound like the Wild Weasels I worked with at Korat Thailand. Those guys flew beaned-up F105's and played bumper tag with SAM missiles. When (if) they landed, it was party time! One night they declared the officers' club stag bar off limits to everybody but Weasels, and they used a potted palm tree to sweep everybody else out the door! All volunteers- - - -great guys, but absolutely, certifiably nuts!
Jerry

Jerry

Yeah ... we did just patch em up and drive on. I recall that my Huey had 44 patches from the back of the pilots seats forward, by the time I left RVN. Tough ole birds they were. We were lucky to have them.

Tom

Jerry -- I've been in that OClub at Korat ... The pool hadn't been cleaned since you all left it... It's where we set up the Field Public Affairs Office for Cobra Gold '92.

Tom -- spent some time with a CH-46 squadron in Okinawa back in the '90's. They had one bird that had patches going back to Vietnam deployments. Those ole Piasecki bananas kept everyone employed on the flight line ...

Jerry

Ahhh the ole H21 Shawnee. They were sort of the medium lift helicopter of the early Vietnam war. Noisy, smelly, and uncomfortable. I had the privilege of meeting Frank Piasecki back in the early 80s. Sadly, it was at a funeral, so I did not have the chance to engage in any real conversation. Certainly a pioneer of American helicopter aviation.

Tom