Left or Right at Highway 180?
Between my tours in Vietnam I taught Army flight school at Fort Wolters, Texas. There are always lots of fun experiences when teaching basic flight school but at Fort Wolters a little more challenge was added by our instructing some foreign military officers. Most of the students were from the US but a small percentage came from any allies around the world.
At Fort Wolters there were three major heliports that we flew out of and we were told that combined they had more take-offs and landings than any place else in the world except Chicago’s O’Hare airport. We flew out of three heliports; Fort Wolters, Downing, and Dempsey. Combined, the three heliports had about fifteen to eighteen hundred helicopters and most of them flew five days a week.
At Downing there about five hundred helicopters and it was a busy place. There were prime times for launching and recovering all of those helicopters. To come into land the helicopters lined up along a highway called Highway 180 and then passed over a spot marked on the ground called the Initial Point or IP. When the aircraft passed over the IP he would call the tower giving his three digit tail number and announce he was over the IP for landing. The call sounded like, “945 IP over” and the tower would respond with “945 cleared to land”. Within three to five seconds the next helicopter would be over the IP and making his call. There was no break in the radio calls for an hour around noon and about five in the afternoon every day. There was a solid line of these flying bugs wanting to land and unlike what most folks think, it is not a good idea to just stop and hold your position in a helicopter at three hundred feet in the air. If you had an engine failure at that altitude you might not be able to recover it. Student pilots that had just soloed flew many of these helicopters at Downing. They certainly didn’t have the skills to stop and hold their position in the air.
As I was coming in to land one day during the very busy time with the radio filled with nonstop calls over the IP, another call came on the radio. A South Vietnamese student pilot came on the radio and asked, “Left or right at highway 180?” He had been flying at one of the remote training sites called stage fields and was sent back solo to return the aircraft to Downing. As he was flying along he had come to highway 180 which was a divided four lane highway and knew he was supposed to follow it to Downing Heliport but didn’t know whether to turn right or left.
The student’s call interrupted the calls over the IP but the aircraft kept flying past the IP. The tower answered the call from the student by asking him, “Are you west or east of Downing?” His response was, “Left or right at highway 180?” Again the tower asked him if he was east or west but again his response was, “Left or right at highway 180?” The tower then tried another question, “Are you coming from the north or south?” The same question came again, “Left or right at highway 180?” In the meantime helicopters are still passing over the IP and not able to make their calls. The tower then tried another question, “Which stage field did you come from?” Sure enough, it brought the same question, “Left or right at highway 180?”
Then another voice came on the radio which I was certain was one of the instructor pilots who was frustrated by the whole situation, and his call was, “Left!” At that point the radio calls continued over the IP with all those that had already passed over trying to make their reports. It was a radio mess for about the next ten minutes. I don’t believe the instructor pilot that answered the student with the answer, “Left” had any idea if he should turn left or right. I really believe that he was just giving the student an answer to satisfy him and get him off the radio. The answer had a fifty-fifty chance of being correct! If the answer was correct the student would find Downing Heliport but if it was wrong he was sent out to the wide-open spaces of Texas and would probably run out of gas.
There are always those who answer questions and don’t know what they are talking about. And normally the ones that don’t know what they are talking about are the quickest to give out answers. Some folks consider themselves experts on every subject and are always ready with an answer when not even asked. Before we make a turn it is always best to get reliable input and ensure we are going the right direction. The wrong turn can take us far off our course but the right turn can take us home. Most questions can be answered if we know where we came from, where we are, and where we want to go!
At Fort Wolters there were three major heliports that we flew out of and we were told that combined they had more take-offs and landings than any place else in the world except Chicago’s O’Hare airport. We flew out of three heliports; Fort Wolters, Downing, and Dempsey. Combined, the three heliports had about fifteen to eighteen hundred helicopters and most of them flew five days a week.
At Downing there about five hundred helicopters and it was a busy place. There were prime times for launching and recovering all of those helicopters. To come into land the helicopters lined up along a highway called Highway 180 and then passed over a spot marked on the ground called the Initial Point or IP. When the aircraft passed over the IP he would call the tower giving his three digit tail number and announce he was over the IP for landing. The call sounded like, “945 IP over” and the tower would respond with “945 cleared to land”. Within three to five seconds the next helicopter would be over the IP and making his call. There was no break in the radio calls for an hour around noon and about five in the afternoon every day. There was a solid line of these flying bugs wanting to land and unlike what most folks think, it is not a good idea to just stop and hold your position in a helicopter at three hundred feet in the air. If you had an engine failure at that altitude you might not be able to recover it. Student pilots that had just soloed flew many of these helicopters at Downing. They certainly didn’t have the skills to stop and hold their position in the air.
As I was coming in to land one day during the very busy time with the radio filled with nonstop calls over the IP, another call came on the radio. A South Vietnamese student pilot came on the radio and asked, “Left or right at highway 180?” He had been flying at one of the remote training sites called stage fields and was sent back solo to return the aircraft to Downing. As he was flying along he had come to highway 180 which was a divided four lane highway and knew he was supposed to follow it to Downing Heliport but didn’t know whether to turn right or left.
The student’s call interrupted the calls over the IP but the aircraft kept flying past the IP. The tower answered the call from the student by asking him, “Are you west or east of Downing?” His response was, “Left or right at highway 180?” Again the tower asked him if he was east or west but again his response was, “Left or right at highway 180?” The tower then tried another question, “Are you coming from the north or south?” The same question came again, “Left or right at highway 180?” In the meantime helicopters are still passing over the IP and not able to make their calls. The tower then tried another question, “Which stage field did you come from?” Sure enough, it brought the same question, “Left or right at highway 180?”
Then another voice came on the radio which I was certain was one of the instructor pilots who was frustrated by the whole situation, and his call was, “Left!” At that point the radio calls continued over the IP with all those that had already passed over trying to make their reports. It was a radio mess for about the next ten minutes. I don’t believe the instructor pilot that answered the student with the answer, “Left” had any idea if he should turn left or right. I really believe that he was just giving the student an answer to satisfy him and get him off the radio. The answer had a fifty-fifty chance of being correct! If the answer was correct the student would find Downing Heliport but if it was wrong he was sent out to the wide-open spaces of Texas and would probably run out of gas.
There are always those who answer questions and don’t know what they are talking about. And normally the ones that don’t know what they are talking about are the quickest to give out answers. Some folks consider themselves experts on every subject and are always ready with an answer when not even asked. Before we make a turn it is always best to get reliable input and ensure we are going the right direction. The wrong turn can take us far off our course but the right turn can take us home. Most questions can be answered if we know where we came from, where we are, and where we want to go!
posted by Bruce | 1:32 PM
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