Chickenhawk: Back in the World - Life After Vietnam

Right. Good, bright-faced kid had it figured out. “How far is the marker stone from the trees?”

“The length of the helicopter plus five paces, sir.”

“Good. Let’s try it.” It was all by the numbers, but it worked. I’d gone through the same program thinking it was bullshit, this pacing business. But it actually built an indelible image of a process: getting a helicopter into a woodsy-tangled, confined area and back out again without snagging something. Confined areas would soon be known to the student as LZs—landing zones. By that time, the student wouldn’t need to pace off the clearances, putting down markers where it was safe to hover and take off. He wouldn’t have time, but would be able to judge them with extreme accuracy developed by going through this drill.

We got in the Hiller and belted up. The wind was gusty. The student hovered backward along his stone trail, over-controlling the helicopter, making it lurch and wallow, afraid he’d bump into the trees behind him. No one trusts his own stone markers the first few times. He stopped over a rock, keeping it right in front of his feet. The wind was pushing him backward toward the brush and he was wallowing, getting sloppy, losing it. He could feel the wiry mesquite branches reaching for his tail rotor. “You sure that’s the right rock?” I said. Added pressure.

His knuckles were white. The Hiller seemed to fight harder in the wind. He was wondering if it was the same goddamn rock he put at the end of his hover path. Why was the IP asking if it was the right rock? Maybe I went too far, he thought. Shit! But wait. There’s that cow turd next to my marker. He loved seeing that cow flop. He clicked the intercom switch on the cyclic. “Yessir. It’s the one.”

“Okay.”

My student let the Hiller down, banged around, hitting all four points of the landing skid; tail rocked back when it squatted down on the sloping ground. Not neat, this real world compared to the paved stage fields where he learned to fly. He searched the sky, making sure we were clear of other helicopters, rolled the throttle grip to bring the Hiller up to takeoff power, pulled up the collective, jerked to a hover, and lowered the nose into takeoff position. We hit translational lift almost immediately because the wind was so strong—the rotor system suddenly became more efficient as it translated (Army term) from the churning air under the rotors to the clean air ahead of it. The Hiller jerked up, eager to fly.

The student did well. We crossed the tree line with altitude to spare. He flew over rolling Texas brush country, home to tumbleweeds and jackrabbits, toward the Brazos River Valley a half mile away. When he crossed the edge of the two-hundred-foot drop-off into the river valley, I cut the power.

He slammed the collective down. Good. Late on the collective means the rotors, angled up for powered flight, will stop and you will die. Now. Had to find a place to land. Had twenty seconds before we hit the ground. The Hiller lost 1,750 feet a minute in a glide—called an autorotation in a helicopter. Nothing but a sheer wall of rocks and Texas brambles under him. Couldn’t turn back—wouldn’t make the ledge. He aimed the machine toward a sandbar in the middle of the river. I smiled. Fifty feet over the river, when I was sure he’d make it, I said “I’ve got it” and took control. I pulled in the power and skimmed across the sandbar.

I swooped up to the top of the far ridge of the river valley and landed on a little ledge, right in front of a wall of tall trees. The tail section of the Hiller jutted out into space. Just knowing that made you feel like you’d fall off.

“How can I get out of here?” I said into the intercom. “Have to take off into the wind, but the trees are too tall.” I glanced at the student and then looked over my shoulder. “Can’t back up, we’re at the edge already.” I looked left and right at the trees nearly touching the rotors. “No room to turn around, even. What would you do?”

Student turned to me and said he wouldn’t have landed here in the first place. I liked this student.

I nodded. “Someday you will have to land here.” I rolled on the throttle and pulled up the collective to lighten the Hiller on its skids. “We will fall out of here,” I said.

“Sir?” the student said, looking worried.

We rose, rearing back—falling off the cliff. When the nose cleared the ledge, I fell into the valley. The trees and the ledge sailed above us as we sank. The tail naturally wanted to swap ends as we fell backward, like an arrow tossed feathers first. I pressed the right tail rotor pedal and we snapped around. I dove to gain airspeed. At sixty knots, I swooped up and we soared up and out of the valley. Student said, “Wow!”