20
EXTERNALS
CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA ■ MAY 1980
Very, very few people are natural pilots. Most people who become pilots learn slowly and while they are learning, they are very, very dangerous to everyone else because they are inept. But even more dangerous than normal slow learners, are the few that are “naturals,” the ones born to fly. They are more dangerous because they sometimes come without the fear of death. They have to be taught that their abilities will not save them if they take the aircraft too far or think their skill will get them out of a situation that no one can resolve.
M CAS New River, as are all Marine Corps Air Stations, is named for a local feature. Some are named for a town—MCAS Beaufort and MCAS Yuma come to mind. Some are named for geographic features, like MCAS Cherry Point named after a point of land on the Neuse River. MCAS New River is named for the New River, the brown, yellow, muddy feature that separates the base from Camp Lejeune. The New River is a bit unusual since it begins and ends in Onslow County, North Carolina, starting as a black water creek in a swamp that becomes an alligator swamp until it changes downstream into a wide, very shallow river that passes on the south side of the air field. The Marine Corps’ east Coast training Squadron for cargo helicopters, HMT-204, is located at MCAS New River.
HMT is marine for “Helicopter Marine Training,” as opposed to “Hmm,” Helicopter Marine Medium, the name of all tactical CH-46 squadrons. HMT-204 provided training for both the CH-46 and the CH-53D. The squadron’s aircraft were all parked at the east end of New River’s concrete ramp, arranged in neat rows by aircraft type, the more numerous CH-46’s here and the CH-53’s there. Flight Operations at HMT-204 normally consisted of two day launches, one in the morning and one in the afternoon during the week. There were three types of flights: student training flights, instructor training flights, and maintenance check flights. Night training flights went out two or three times a week. If the student throughput load was light, the squadron took the weekend off.
Instructors in HMT-204 were generally cruised-out captains finishing out their first Fleet Marine Corps tour, meaning they were assigned there from the deploying squadrons after completing two six-month LF6F deployments. They would be instructors for, at most, a year before they went off to Amphibious Warfare School or headquarters duty or some other non-Fleet assignment. even now, Fleet tours are the only ones that are really important to a Marine. Why would you want to be a Marine if you weren’t in the “Fleet,” where real Marine things are done? My HMT-204 tour would be longer than most since I got there much faster than usual, and I completed the Marine Corps’ aviation training program sooner than a typical pilot due to my prior aviation service with the Army. It doesn’t take nearly as long to train a pilot who already knows how to fly, so I got to the Fleet as a second lieutenant and finished my two med cruises much sooner than typical.
I was a prime candidate for HMT-204. I was cruised out and had been on station at New River for less than three years. I was easy to train as a CH-46F instructor since my instructor career had started in wooden rotorbladed OH-13es in 1969. After that, I was the company senior instructor pilot in Chinooks in 1971 in Vietnam. There, I flew the first 25 hours with all newbies, gave copilot and aircraft commander check rides, and trained new instructor pilots (IPs). During the time I had been an instructor, I had seen about all types of pilots come through training. I flew with cocky ones, scared ones, marginally competent ones, all types except a truly natural pilot—someone who took to flying completely and so thoroughly that instruction seems superfluous. Oh, I had known a couple of natural pilots, men who did everything so effortlessly that you could not help but feel somehow inadequate, but I never had one as a student.
One day at HMT-204, I finally had one.
Natural pilots, on the surface, look like everyone else, unlike many athletes who seem designed for their sport. It’s not that their eyes are better than other pilots since all military aviators start with at least 20/20 vision. Nor are they more physically fit, as all military pilots start out in excellent health and fitness. Ground school is not an indicator. It is very possible to ace every test they throw at you and still be a terrible pilot, and it’s possible to squeak by on tests and fly like eddie Rickenbacker (medal of Honor recipient and WWI fighter ace). The only way to tell if someone is a natural is to take them flying, hence the aeronautical adaptability programs some services run. Take the prospect up in a light aircraft and see if they take to flying, thereby weeding out the weak ones early. After that it is up to the flight school instructors to complete the selection, to decide who makes it and who doesn’t.
The brief that morning was normal in all respects. I had reviewed the student’s training record and saw only the way-too-normal write-ups by lazy flight instructors, “good flight, no problems,” which tells you absolutely nothing. Our flight today was to be the lieutenant’s first external load mission. Like all naval aviators, he had done a few easy externals in flight school but at Pensacola, they used light weights, usually small concrete blocks that were well below the maximum weight limit for the Hueys he was flying.
I had first learned how to handle externals using Huey’s in Army flight school, but just like Navy flight training, the lesson was quick and the loads were light. When I got to Chinook transition, prior to Vietnam, the sling load training got serious; moving external loads was the aircraft’s primary mission. The serious sling load training took place at Fort McClellan, up near Anniston, Alabama.
To save on manpower and more importantly, to teach us how hard a job the hookup man has, we students would do all the attaching of the loads. After a five-minute class, complete with a warning that if we did not properly ground the aircraft with the grounding wand, the static electricity the aircraft generated would knock you on your ass, if not kill you outright, we were considered trained. The instructor would land and drop us off in the field with the loads and a list of which ones we were to hookup and in what order, as the helicopter came in for pickup. We would go to the appointed load and climb up on top holding the “donut”—a heavy-duty ring of nylon cloth holding all the legs of the sling together—and the grounding wand.
The idea was to touch the cargo hook with the wand and then slide the donut on the hook with the wand still touching. The aircraft would land short of the load and hover forward. The IHH-knot rotor wash would hit you as they came to a hover and build as they came over you. You were looking up at the flight engineer through the hellhole as he directed the student pilot to come left, right, back, forward, as required to position the cargo hook over the load. Once the student pilot got the aircraft close enough to the donut for you to reach it, the flight engineer would direct the student pilot to come down until at last you, the hookup man, could get the donut on the hook. Once the donut was secured to the hook, we would jump off the top of the load and run away from the rotor wash before they began to lift the load off the ground.
With the Chinooks, we had all types of loads: trucks, old helicopter fuselages, an old airplane or two, and of course, concrete blocks of various weights, right up to the maximum the aircraft could handle. The cement block practice loads were all labeled with their weight painted on the sides and top. The aircraft practice loads did not have their weights listed but were all light enough to be well within the limits of the aircraft. Even so, the aircraft were far more difficult to carry than the cement blocks; even with their wings removed, they presented a lot of surface area for a light weight to the air as you began forward flight. They would swing back and forth and twist around, unlike the cement blocks which generally just hung straight down. The blocks were small and heavy, nearly perfect loads, at least perfect loads for student pilots because you couldn’t hurt them if you dragged them across the ground on landing or even dropped them before they touched down.
It was quite a sight, that huge helicopter wobbling a few feet above you as the student pilot tried to get the aircraft into position to hook up the load. You could tell instantly whether the student or the instructor was flying. The aircraft was steady and the hookup quick if the instructor was flying. If the aircraft wobbled and drifted up and down, right and left, backward and forward, it was the student. But of course the first hookup was always the instructor as he demonstrated the maneuver—all the rest would be the student.
Who was flying was particularly worrying on the last load of the training flight because they would not land to pick up the student pilot acting as hookup man. Instead, after the last load was securely on the donut, the pilot at the controls would lower the aircraft down to the point where the hookup man could climb onboard through the hellhole. To get that low, the student pilot would have to bring the Chinook down to where it was only a few feet above the concrete block. If he wobbled badly, he could easily crush the hookup man between the aircraft and the load. The instructors did it to show you how much you must appreciate the danger hookup men face on each and every load. The pilot must always respect the hookup man and be as smooth as possible during the procedure because his life is literally in your hands every time you pick up a load.
I remembered standing on the load and climbing up into the aircraft later when I was flying in Vietnam, watching the hookup men risk their lives on every load. While hovering forward to pick up a load of 105-howitzer ammo one day, I saw the legs of the sling were fouled, partially stuck under the ammo, preventing the hookup man from lifting the donut above his head. Instead, he was lying on his back on top of the load, holding the donut about a foot above his chest. To hook the load up, I would have to get the hook one foot above him. The slightest twitch on my part and he would be dead. What trust he had in us pilots, or was it just that he was IQ and nothing could hurt him?
Another time, we were extracting a mountaintop firebase while it was under attack. Mortars were exploding all over the hill as we came roaring up the mountain side in a cyclic climb, trading airspeed for altitude while keeping the aircraft as close to the trees as possible to stay out of the enemy machine gunner’s sights. We needed to hook up the IHMs as quickly as possible and jerk them off the ground and over the hillside before the mortars got us. As we crossed the wire around the perimeter, the hookup man would jump up on top the gun and stand there with the donut held over his head while the explosions went off all around the hilltop, black flashes and shrapnel flying through the air. Time after time they stood there until all the guns were hooked up and gone. Doing it once and it could be that you were just pissed off at the enemy for shooting at you; doing it time after time and even though you know that death waits, requires a conscious decision. But then, hooking up loads is the mission for these men. The mission must be done.
Later I reflected on the fact that the NVA had about IM seconds to get me when I came up on top of that hill, but those soldiers stood there for at least KH seconds time after time. Like I said, do it once and maybe you were just not thinking about it, but do it over and over and you are brave. The hookup men were brave men, all of them
But those days are gone, at least temporarily. Now safety comes first, so no climbing through hell holes and no student hookup men. Here in peacetime, our training would take place down the New River on a small peninsula that stuck out in the river on the Camp Lejeune side, close to where the AMTRAKs, the big amphibious assault vehicles Marines use to get from ship to the shore, are based. There will be no mortars exploding or shrapnel flying and with a real helicopter landing zone team doing the hook ups, not another student pilot. The advantage of this remote location is simply because there is nothing else there; if the student inadvertently drops a load, it is only going to hit the water, not someone. It happened often enough that we instructors joked among ourselves that the bottom of New River was paved with cement blocks students had dropped into the water.
As with every hop, I quizzed the student about what we were going to do on this flight. His knowledge was average at best, but he was qualified. Preflight, start, and taxi were normal. His taxi out to the active runway was as smooth as I had ever seen, unusual for a student only halfway through the syllabus. As I always do, I took control of the aircraft for the first takeoff, but as soon as we were safely established in a climb, I turned the 46 over to the student. He rolled out on the correct heading and stayed firmly on altitude and airspeed, again, a bit unusual for a student. I was impressed, always a problem. It should have been a warning sign, like the big, red master caution light on the dash of the helicopter.
The LZ control team was already on site when we arrived. I took the flight controls back from my student and landed the 46 close to them. The team leader came over to just outside the rotor disk and gave me a thumbs up, indicating that they were ready to go. I would do the first load and talk the student through what I was doing as I demonstrated the procedures.
The normal CH-46 “three on” and an “all set aft” later, I lifted the helicopter to a 20 foot hover. The crew chief announced that we were clear to the rear and I moved the helicopter backwards until I had a clear sight of the load with the hookup man standing on top of it. His assistant was next to him with the grounding pole. I hovered forward and with the crew chief’s direction, quickly hooked up the load.
“Come straight up. Tension coming on. Up. Load’s off, up 20. Load’s off 20, cleared to go,” the crew chief called.
We flew the traffic pattern with the load riding smoothly beneath us. I talked about what to do if the load starts to swing and the possible troubles if it did. Once in Vietnam, when I was still a copilot, I had a vivid demonstration of one of the worst-case scenarios, “settling with power.” Settling with power is a condition that can rapidly turn fatal if you do the wrong thing or are at a low altitude when you get into it. When you get a helicopter slow at a high altitude, nearly to an “out of ground effect” hover, start a slight descent that takes you out of effective translational lift and try to stop it by adding power, the helicopter can start falling straight down in its own disturbed air. The natural reaction of the pilot is to add more power to break the fall, but that only increases the rate of descent. The more power you pull, the faster you fall. The only way out of settling with power is to get forward speed so that you get back in effective translational lift. Once you push the cyclic stick forward and get any air speed, the helicopter moves out of the disturbed air into clean air and the descent immediately becomes a climb.
We had a crashed Huey hanging below our Chinook that day, a routine mission to take the wreckage to a depot for repair or stripping. The damage to the Huey kept it from hanging straight below us docilely like they usually do. Instead, it had a tendency to start swinging slightly, not a problem really, at least at first. We climbed to N, HHH feet to get out of range of any ground fire and to enjoy the cool air away from the tropical heat. We were holding the usual QH knots airspeed as per company Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) when the Huey started to seriously swing, oscillating around to the point where it was becoming a threat to our Chinook. If it hit the bottom of our aircraft, it could possibly take us out of the sky.
To stop a load from swinging, the usual procedure is to slow down and make the load heavier by adding weight, i.e. add power to increase “G” on the load. The AC immediately started to slow down and add power. As we slowed, the swinging began to decrease when suddenly we were going straight down, aircraft level but falling so fast the vertical speed indicator was pegged on full down, meaning in less than one minute we would hit the jungle below.
“Pickle! Pickle!” the AC yelled over the intercom, meaning jettison the Huey. The Chinook has triple redundancy for getting rid of external loads: electrical, using the button on the bottom of the cyclic stick; mechanical, using a pedal between the rudder pedals on each side; and emergency, activating a red-covered switch that discharges an air bottle thereby blowing the hook to the open position. He was yelling for me to do it because, as per our SOP, we had turned off the electrical jettison system once we were safely in forward flight, to prevent an inadvertent release. Instead of using either the manual or emergency system, I was reaching for the electrical switch on the overhead panel when we looked across the cockpit at each other and simultaneously realized that we were in “settling with power.”
The AC pushed the nose of the Chinook forward and we instantaneously went from a N, HHH+ feet per minute descent to a L, HHH+ feet per minute climb. He reduced the power as our airspeed came up to QH knots. After a few seconds, the flight engineer called “Load’s steady.” About ten minutes later, we got our heart rates under control again. The Huey stayed where it was supposed to be without another swing for the rest of the flight. Give the crew due credit, none of them said a word about how close we had brought them to death—cool counts for them too.
Later, in CH-46s, I tried to induce “settling with power” so that the student pilots could see and recognize it, but the 46 just would not go into it. The closest I could come was a zero airspeed autorotation, but the rate of descent was nothing like power settling—way too slow. When I tried it in the Sea King, I found out that not only would the aircraft readily enter “settling with power” after it entered, it would not fall straight down but would begin to oscillate violently. As soon as it started to oscillate, I would reduce power and lower the nose to fly the Sea King out of it. No point in scaring yourself any more than absolutely necessary.
But today there would be no “settling with power.” Don’t think we could have made that cement block swing if we wanted to; it was just too heavy and had a nice small surface area. It was a lot like the 8,000-pound loads of 105mm ammo that we carried into Laos in February, 1971. One major difference that I would not demonstrate to my student today was how we did our final approach and landed the load in 1971. today it would just be a normal approach, coming to a high hover with the load 20 feet off the ground before moving it forward into position and setting it down. In 1971, we Chinook pilots used a procedure I’ve never seen before or since.
When the enemy has small arms or light machine guns around the landing zone where you are taking your external load, you want to keep your helicopter right over the secure zone and out of their range as much as possible. In a 46, you can do this flying directly over the LZ at 1,500 feet or more, then putting the helicopter into a tight spiral down, rolling into a 45–60 degree angle of bank, while dropping the power all the way down to enter autorotation as you auger down. this keeps your aircraft right over the LZ and out of enemy range, at least a little.
That was the theory anyway…
At some point, you roll your 46 wings level and transition back to a normal approach. You can’t do this in a Chinook because the aircraft is limited to 30 degrees of bank, making your turns really big, thus very much limiting your ability to stay over the landing zone and out of enemy range.
In Laos, we would fly our Chinooks directly into the wind, toward the landing zone at 3,000 feet or more, and above the ground to stay out of AK-47 and 12. 7mm machine gun range. We would slow our airspeed as we got close, until at last, we were just about stopped. Power settling was not an issue because we kept the aircraft pointed into the wind. Instead of adding power to maintain altitude, when we could see the landing point between the rudder pedals, we would put the thrust all the way down to enter autorotation. With zero forward airspeed, the Chinook would be moving backwards through the air at whatever speed the wind was blowing. Since we did not have a radar altimeter at what we estimated to be MHH feet above the ground, we would lower the nose to regain airspeed and at around JHH feet we would pull back stick to flare the aircraft while adding power to break our rate of descent and ideally, transition to a normal approach. If you worked it just right, you could drop the load where they wanted it and be back in a very rapid climb within seconds.
But we wouldn’t do that today. We would just fly the pattern and land the load. Lift the load to about 20 feet off the ground, add power, lower the nose, climb to 300 feet, fly the pattern at 300 feet, call abeam, roll into the turn to final, bring the aircraft to a hover with the load 20 feet off the ground, and finally drop it where the LZ control team wanted it. After that, we would hover the helicopter backwards until we could see the load again and then repeat the process. We would do that for about an hour so that the student could get as many practice external loads as possible before we had to return to the airfield and real life.
After I dropped the load and moved the aircraft backwards into position, I gave the flight controls to the student. He held a nice, steady hover and at the crew chief’s direction, smoothly moved forward over the load.
“Forward 10, over the load, down 10, 5 hold, steady, steady, load hooked, hookup man clear. Come straight up. tension coming on the load. Sling’s tight, up, up, load’s off. Up 20, 10, steady. All ready aft, clear to go,” the crew chief called. It was as smooth a pickup as I’ve seen and I relaxed.
The student smoothly added power and lowered the nose. But then he didn’t add enough power and he lowered the nose too far and in a second the concrete block load hit the ground and dug in, rotating the helicopter at the top of the sling directly toward the ground 40 feet away, nose first. We would hit the ground in less than five seconds; first would be the forward rotor blades and as they came off, the cockpit. We might or might not burn. The crashworthy fuel system worked sometimes and sometimes it did not. But we didn’t crash.
When I am not at the flight controls, I always rest my right hand on my right leg, near the cyclic stick. When I saw the nose start to rotate forward my hand moved, without conscious thought, to the cyclic and the hook release button. Without a word, I pushed the button, the hook opened, the load fell away and the aircraft began to move forward, but no longer nose first toward the ground. my right hand closed around cyclic and my left, the collective as I said, “I’ve got it!” The student immediately released the controls and I stopped the helicopter in a stable hover. moving over to a clear spot, I asked the crew chief, “Clear below?” We were and I sat the helicopter down.
My crew chief was an old hand and had realized, as I did, what was happening as it happened and was moving for his release. He would have released the load if I had not. He also knew to get back out of the way because when you release a load under tension, the cargo hook will swing up and can easily hit an unwary crewman directly in the face.
The student was not even slightly upset. Ah, the joy of ignorance when you do not know how close a call you just had. I calmly went through what just happened with him and explained why it happened. He nodded and said he understood. I gave the flight controls back to him and told him to try it again. He lifted smoothly into a 20-foot hover and at the crew chief’s direction again, moved the aircraft backwards until the load was visible over the dash. The crew chief talked us into position over the load. The student had no problem getting the 46 directly over the load, lowering the aircraft down until the hookup man could get the donut on the hook.
He lifted us up until the load was 20 feet off the ground, and transitioned us to forward flight absolutely perfectly. There was no hint of his first time mistake. He did five more lifts, each time with a heavier load, and each, absolutely perfect from hookup to drop back in the LZ. Training hop complete, we flew back to New River with a GCA to a final landing, hit the fuel pits to top off the tanks and taxied back to the ramp. I gave him all “above average” marks for the flight on the write-up since he did all lifts as close to perfect as pilots get after almost killing us on the first try. Like I said in the beginning, he was a natural pilot.
Luck and superstition…