Six Snakes Playing Follow the Leader

Over my time in the Army I had some wonderful experiences where leaders came up with some ideas that may have sounded good. Some times those ideas were so dangerous that they were never repeated. And looking back I ask myself what were we thinking at the time or why did we ever try that? We all knew better than that so how did we let ourselves get into such dumb deals?

To illustrate, let me just mention a couple of stupid things we did. Someone decided we could scout at night in Vietnam if we dropped flares and had the Scouts (helicopters) run around under the flares and see what he could see. Dumb idea! The only thing that the flares did was silhouette the Scout to make him a good target and make so many shadows that the Scout couldn’t see anything of value. Somehow we survived that night. We only tried that one night.

Someone had the bright idea that if we put a siren on our Scout helicopters so when the enemy shot at us we could scare them with the siren. Theory tested and proven wrong. The only thing the siren did was to make it more difficult for us to hear on the intercom and to know what was going on.

Then there was the time in Texas when our leaders decided that we could play “follow the leader” at night in the dark with six Cobra helicopters. The unit was moving from one field site to another at night to prove that we could move a unit at night. We were supposed to be close to the enemy front lines so the Cobras were supposed to stay down at treetop level and move without any lights to the new location. The pilots voiced their opinions that it wasn’t a good idea but the commander insisted we could do it. Nightfall came and we waited for the radio call to tell us to move. Long hours passed but finally the call came close to midnight. All of the pilots had been up all day and had flown many missions so we were really tired. By this point we just wanted this thing over and done with.

We cranked up our Cobras and got ready to move out. Each aircraft had his position lights on the dim position. The Cobra had two very small white lights on the tail, one small red light on the left wing and one small green light on the right. In the dim position one aircraft crew could barely see the other aircraft even if they were very close. This was beginning to look like another mission impossible.

The lead aircraft crew knew where we were going and they were responsible to navigate. Other crews should have been confirming that they were going the right place but the lead crew had the big job of navigation. The night was dark and there was no moon.

The lead crew started moving and everyone stayed close behind the aircraft that was in front of them. After just starting to move I lost sight of the two little white lights on the tail of the Cobra in front of me. The only thing I could see was the glow of the exhaust as it came out of the back of his engine. There was this little red glowing circle that I could see and I followed it. There was nothing else I could reference for where I was in relation to the other aircraft. The only choice was to follow the little glow I could see.

When flying formation flights the pilot who is actually flying the aircraft must never take his eyes off the aircraft in front of him. If the aircraft he is following makes any kind of a move he must make a corresponding move within a second or less or the two aircraft would run into each other making one huge fireball. The pilot not flying the aircraft had the job of monitoring the flight and engine instruments, navigating, making radio calls and any other thing that might distract the pilot flying the aircraft.

After just seconds into the flight I told my front seat pilot not to be looking at the instruments or navigating or anything else. I told him the most important thing he could do would be to watch that other aircraft and make sure I didn’t run into him. If I got slightly off to one side I would lose sight of that exhaust and if I got too close we would mesh rotor blades and cause a crash. If I got too far back we’d lose him and could run into him looking for him. One mistake and we would be dead.

The flight only lasted about fifteen minutes but it seemed like hours. The strain of trying to keep the other aircraft in sight was tremendous. And always in the back of my mind was the knowledge that behind me there was another aircraft and he could just as easily run into the back of me.

The aircraft I was flying was number five in the flight of six. During some turns and perhaps my moving slightly off to the side I could see two or three exhausts from the Cobras ahead. From where I sat it looked like a snake moving through the vegetation. Later the soldiers who saw us come in and land confirmed that to them we looked like a snake weaving its way along through the vegetation.

When reaching our destination, which was only an open area in the trees, our crew chiefs were there with their flashlights to signal us in. They had the red lens on the flashlights like they were told to do. It wasn’t much help to us. We could only see their flashlights when we were very close to them. It was fortunate that we were moving very slowly or we would have blown right past them.

Few times in my life have I been happier to have a flight over with and be back on the ground. All six of us had made it. As quickly as possible we shut our aircraft down and got out. Every pilot was grumbling and saying that they would never do that again. The common saying was, “They can ground me and take my wings but I will never do that again”.

The experience had been like defusing a bomb. One little slip on any pilot’s part and we’d been killed. The tension had been extremely high. When we landed my hands were just about welded to the controls. It was effort to uncurl my fingers.

The standard procedure was to park our aircraft tactically when arriving at a new site. That meant dispersing the aircraft and parking them facing outward. At one in the morning after a flight like that we didn’t care. We shut the aircraft down where we landed and called it good to be alive. The other thing that was normal procedure was for us to disperse and be hiding in the brush where we couldn’t be found. We didn’t care just then. We got our cots, set them up in a row and went to sleep as soon as the heart rate came back down close to normal.

Early the next morning the commanders saw that we were not dispersed so they threw CS (riot or tear) gas on us. We all had gas masks so it wasn’t too bad. People were running all over the place. I put on my gas mask, calmly walked to my aircraft, climbed into the back seat, lowered the seat all the way down, pulled a blanket over me, pulled my hat down over my eyes and went back to sleep. I didn’t feel like playing any more games right then.

Early that day we had a serious discussion with our platoon leader, the operations officer and the commander. We talked about how dark it had been, how difficult it was to see the other aircraft and that a move in the dark like that should not be attempted again. We offered to take anyone of them with us if they didn’t believe how dangerous it had been. They agreed not to try that again.

There are times in life when it seems like we are flying as blind as we did on that night in Texas. But if in the dark we can find some light or glow that we can trust we can have a guide. It doesn’t take the full light of day to give us something to go by. Some times when we see too much we get distracted. In each situation, in each phase of life find a light that can be trusted and follow it. It doesn’t have to be the bright light of day, just a trustworthy light!