Cripple 4 at Fire Support Base Mace
During the Vietnam era the US Army was going through a rapid growth in aviation. The Army was going from a small group of helicopters and airplanes to a huge number of helicopters and a few more airplanes. This required training thousands of pilots and putting them into combat. Virtually every pilot who graduated from flight school was headed straight for Vietnam. This produced a situation where there were few pilots in Vietnam that had only a few months experience out of flight school and at best a few hundred hours flight time. The age of most of the pilots was also pretty young. There were few who were over twenty-two or three years of age.
When I returned to Vietnam for my second tour the situation was changing some. There were some other fellows who were returning and most of us had two thousand hours of flight time after flight school and twelve months of combat flying under our belts. Three of us joined a unit that had just made three fellows on their first tour “Aircraft Commanders”. Aircraft commanders are the pilots that are in charge of the aircraft when you have more than one pilot in the aircraft. When you have to have someone be in charge you go with the best you have. These fellows had about four months in combat and about three hundred hours flight time out of flight school. They were the best they had just prior to our arrival. They left them as aircraft commanders and we flew as their copilots.
Some aircraft have stronger engines than others and some places you land and takeoff from make it more challenging. We had a Cobra aircraft number “444” that seemed to have a pretty weak engine so we had nicknamed it “Cripple 4”. And Fire Support Mace was one of those places that was not fun to get in and out of. It was located up against a small mountain and only allowed a narrow choice of approaches in and out of our assigned area, which didn’t always give us favorable wind direction. There wasn’t a runway but just a landing area with a barbwire fence around it that we had to clear.
I was there flying as copilot for one of these young aircraft commanders one day when it was hot and the winds were not favorable. Both of these conditions make it tough to get a heavy aircraft off the ground. A helicopter produces good lift when at a stationary hover and then more power is required as the helicopter is accelerated forward until it reaches about eighteen knots when the amount of lift produced for the applied power goes up dramatically. Going into a headwind helps get to the point of greater lift sooner.
We were called out for a mission under these conditions in “cripple 4”. We lined up for our takeoff and started moving forward. Someplace between ten to fifteen knots the engine and rotor system started losing revolutions per minute (RPM) because of the demand for power. When this happens there is a warning light and audio that start warning the pilot. If the pilot can give up a foot or two of height at this point he can reduce the demand for power just a bit and normally that is enough to let the engine rebuild the RPM and that gives the aircraft a chance to get above the airspeed where less power is needed and then everything is fine. The aircraft is then off and flying. We had just cleared the barbwire fence when the audio and warning light started going off. At this point an experienced pilot would have reduced the demand for power, let the aircraft settle a foot or so and we would have been on our way. But this young aircraft commander panicked a bit and decided to abort the takeoff. The only place to land was a dirt road that ran around the outside of the Fire Support Base. We landed! The dust flew and the Army trucks pulled off the road into the brush to get out of our way. There had been a convoy going down the road. We did a great job of sandblasting them with sand from the road!
Now we are sitting on the road blocking the convoy, facing “downwind”, and don’t have enough power to lift the aircraft out of here. At this point the aircraft commander said, “What should I do now”? I told him the options were to sit there for an hour blocking traffic and burn off some fuel or to increase the load on the engine, really sandblasting the truck drivers and only have to sit there half an hour. We were in a pickle! We are sitting outside of the perimeter where we are vulnerable to attack and can’t move and have a convoy blocked where they are vulnerable to attack. We sandblasted them and got out of there a half hour late for our mission! We didn’t make any friends in that convoy as they sat there being sandblasted and vulnerable to attack!
There have been many times in my life, where looking back, I think like my young aircraft commander friend, I should have just made a little “adjustment” and stayed the course. Had I held the course, there was a breakthrough just ahead. My mother used to say that “most things work out for the best” and I have come to agree. There is a time when we should make changes.
When I returned to Vietnam for my second tour the situation was changing some. There were some other fellows who were returning and most of us had two thousand hours of flight time after flight school and twelve months of combat flying under our belts. Three of us joined a unit that had just made three fellows on their first tour “Aircraft Commanders”. Aircraft commanders are the pilots that are in charge of the aircraft when you have more than one pilot in the aircraft. When you have to have someone be in charge you go with the best you have. These fellows had about four months in combat and about three hundred hours flight time out of flight school. They were the best they had just prior to our arrival. They left them as aircraft commanders and we flew as their copilots.
Some aircraft have stronger engines than others and some places you land and takeoff from make it more challenging. We had a Cobra aircraft number “444” that seemed to have a pretty weak engine so we had nicknamed it “Cripple 4”. And Fire Support Mace was one of those places that was not fun to get in and out of. It was located up against a small mountain and only allowed a narrow choice of approaches in and out of our assigned area, which didn’t always give us favorable wind direction. There wasn’t a runway but just a landing area with a barbwire fence around it that we had to clear.
I was there flying as copilot for one of these young aircraft commanders one day when it was hot and the winds were not favorable. Both of these conditions make it tough to get a heavy aircraft off the ground. A helicopter produces good lift when at a stationary hover and then more power is required as the helicopter is accelerated forward until it reaches about eighteen knots when the amount of lift produced for the applied power goes up dramatically. Going into a headwind helps get to the point of greater lift sooner.
We were called out for a mission under these conditions in “cripple 4”. We lined up for our takeoff and started moving forward. Someplace between ten to fifteen knots the engine and rotor system started losing revolutions per minute (RPM) because of the demand for power. When this happens there is a warning light and audio that start warning the pilot. If the pilot can give up a foot or two of height at this point he can reduce the demand for power just a bit and normally that is enough to let the engine rebuild the RPM and that gives the aircraft a chance to get above the airspeed where less power is needed and then everything is fine. The aircraft is then off and flying. We had just cleared the barbwire fence when the audio and warning light started going off. At this point an experienced pilot would have reduced the demand for power, let the aircraft settle a foot or so and we would have been on our way. But this young aircraft commander panicked a bit and decided to abort the takeoff. The only place to land was a dirt road that ran around the outside of the Fire Support Base. We landed! The dust flew and the Army trucks pulled off the road into the brush to get out of our way. There had been a convoy going down the road. We did a great job of sandblasting them with sand from the road!
Now we are sitting on the road blocking the convoy, facing “downwind”, and don’t have enough power to lift the aircraft out of here. At this point the aircraft commander said, “What should I do now”? I told him the options were to sit there for an hour blocking traffic and burn off some fuel or to increase the load on the engine, really sandblasting the truck drivers and only have to sit there half an hour. We were in a pickle! We are sitting outside of the perimeter where we are vulnerable to attack and can’t move and have a convoy blocked where they are vulnerable to attack. We sandblasted them and got out of there a half hour late for our mission! We didn’t make any friends in that convoy as they sat there being sandblasted and vulnerable to attack!
There have been many times in my life, where looking back, I think like my young aircraft commander friend, I should have just made a little “adjustment” and stayed the course. Had I held the course, there was a breakthrough just ahead. My mother used to say that “most things work out for the best” and I have come to agree. There is a time when we should make changes.
posted by Bruce | 3:40 PM
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