Low Level Hell Read online

  Returning to base from those first scouting flights, I was physically drained but emotionally high—excited to get back into the air and do better next time. In self-evaluation, I recognized my problem: I was trying to see everything there was to see on the ground. Therefore I saw only masses of terrain swirling by. I did what every beginner scout pilot did—focused on the macro not the micro. It flooded my senses, overloaded my sensory capabilities.

  By 31 March, Bill Hayes was back from leave. That signaled the opportunity for me to start OH-6 transition, with Hayes as instructor pilot (IP) and me as first pilot.

  Bill Hayes was a powerful, good-natured black man, who must have weighed more than 220 pounds, stood at least six feet two, and had hands as big as tennis rackets. The scout bird was a small helicopter, and Bill Hayes didn't simply get into an OH-6—he put it on. Everybody who knew Bill well enough to get away with it called him Buff, which stood for big ugly fat fucker!

  The first time I climbed aboard the OH-6 with Hayes, I couldn't help but notice how that scout bird settled down onto the ground with his weight. The landing gear on the OH-6 had shock dampers on the struts that supported the aircraft, to provide a hydraulic cushion to the skids during takeoffs and landings. As each crew member stepped up into the airplane, you could see the skids settle and spread out. When one of those people was Buff Hayes, you could almost hear the landing gear groan.

  I had studied my dash 10 operator's manual, as well as the maintenance dash 20 and 30, and had been all over the Loach dozens of times, both by myself and with the crew chief. And I had spent literally hours in the airplane cold, in the pilot's seat with my eyes closed, mentally establishing where all the cockpit switches and instruments were.

  On our first flight, Hayes instructed me to “get the ship out here in the area and hover it.” This was the first thing a helicopter pilot did when transitioning into a new aircraft—hover the ship about three feet off the ground, then taxi forward and back, to the left and right. The exercise told you a lot very quickly about the idiosyncrasies of a particular aircraft.

  Doing this basic maneuver in the OH-6, I learned something right away about this ship—left pedal pressure. On the OH-6, there is so much torque in the tail rotor that the left pedal had built-in pressure applied to it. You could actually feel that pressure in your feet.

  In the Huey I was used to the foot pedals being somewhat unresponsive, almost mushy. If you took your feet off the pedals, there was no telling which pedal might gain movement over the other. In the OH-6, you knew what would happen. When you took your feet off the pedals, the left pedal jumped right back at you, invariably causing the nose to spin to the right. To turn the Loach left, I pushed the left pedal; to turn right, all I had to do was let off the left pedal.

  After I got used to the ground handling characteristics, Hayes told me to take the OH-6 up in the pattern where I could get a feel for the bird's general control touch and how the ship flew and responded. By that time, I was beginning to fall in love with that machine. I tried not to display all the excitement I was feeling to Hayes. He just sat there in the left seat, very relaxed, watching my moves.

  Hayes was known in the troop as one of those guys with absolutely great PT (pilot technique). The old heads in the platoon had their own methods of rating their pilots. They would say, “He's a good stick man,” or, “He's a good stick and rudder guy,” or possibly, worse, “He's mechanical … he's behind the aircraft.” But Hayes had overall pilot finesse that was rivaled by very few other flyers in the unit. Though he looked like a fullback in the pros, he flew a Loach the way Mikhail Baryshnikov danced. I felt fortunate that he was the guy teaching me to fly the OH-6.

  I notified the tower, then took off and climbed straight out the runway heading to about eight hundred feet, then turned right into the cross-wind, gaining altitude as I headed for fifteen hundred feet. Hayes would occasionally say something to me about a system or procedure, but he was generally quiet, carefully watching how I was reacting to the helicopter.

  A good instructor pilot, such as Hayes, usually had his hands on the controls, lightly following the collective and cyclic sticks as the student flew the airplane. The smart transitioning pilot, which I hoped I was, always tried to watch the IP's left hand on the collective. With just a quick flick of his wrist, Hayes could suddenly twist off the throttle and shut down engine power, throwing me into an autorotation mode. I was then faced with getting the aircraft to a safe landing on the ground without the help of engine power.

  If you were cruising along at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet, you'd have time to execute a standard autorotation procedure. But if you were at ninety knots and only twenty to thirty feet off the ground, you had to initiate a low-level, high-speed autorotation procedure designed to give you some more altitude before heading back down for a powerless landing. Either way, fast pilot reaction was necessary to get to the ground in one piece. Down collective, immediately, took the pitch out of the main rotor blades and set up air resistance against the flattened blades to keep you from falling out of the sky like a rock. At the same time, you pulled the cyclic stick back into your gut. This action tilted back the rotor head, keeping the bird's nose up when what it really wanted to do was drop down to the ground.

  Hayes warned me, however, about an imprudent move of the cyclic when in a low-level, high-speed situation. Such a movement held the potential of abnormally flexing the OH-6's main rotor blades and cutting off the tail boom of the helicopter.

  The more I flew the Loach, and the more Hayes tested me, the more I fell in love with the OH-6. It handled beautifully. It was lively, responsive, and as light to the touch and maneuverable as any hot sports car. I logged 12.6 hours transitioning into the OH-6, most of that time with Hayes in the left seat, the rest with me alone in the ship.

  Before Hayes signed off on my check ride slip, fully qualifying me in the OH-6, he took me on one more ride—down to the Saigon River to shoot the Loach minigun. Since our scout ships were ordinarily not armed with miniguns, Hayes had had an XM27E1 system especially mounted on one of the OH-6s just for transitioning pilots. He wanted me to fire the minigun to get a feel for aiming and to see what it was like to pull the trigger to the first indent, letting go with two thousand rounds per minute, then to the second indent, letting four thousand rounds a minute blaze into the target.

  The armament system consisted of several components but was basically a 7.62mm, six-barreled machine-gun assembly, an electric gun drive assembly and ammunition feed and eject mechanisms, and a reflex sight. The sight, I learned, was never used or even carried. It wasn't too accurate and, worse than that, was totally in the way of the pilot in the cockpit.

  Flying out and back from the firing site gave me a chance to talk to Hayes about my feeling that the scout ships should be armed with miniguns. I still felt strongly that aeroscouts should have the ability to shoot back at an enemy.

  Hayes didn't agree. He, like John Herchert, Jim Morrison, and Bill Jones, felt that having guns routinely mounted on OH-6s could get scouts into trouble. It could cause them to think so much about shooting that they'd forget that their real mission was scouting.

  I finished transitioning with Hayes on 3 April, and for the next couple of days went back to flying copilot-observer with Bill Jones. He was a master at spotting anything that contrasted with the natural environment. He might catch a slightly different color in the vegetation, maybe the glint of something shiny. Or possibly a movement would grab his attention, or an angular shape that appeared out of place in an otherwise shapeless jungle.

  Bill continued to give me tips. He advised me to focus my eyes farther away from the ship, which would slow down the movement of the terrain and give me the chance to see individual objects instead of just a sickening blur. He told me, also, to “penetrate” my vision as the ship came in low and slow, to look through the top layer of jungle and concentrate on seeing right down to the ground.

  One day Jones swooped down extra low.
“Did you see those VC down there?” he asked me over the intercom.

  All I saw were treetops. He brought the ship around again, decelerated, and told me to look down. Focusing my eyes past the tops of the trees, I looked through the foliage and there they were! Five angry-looking, brown VC faces staring up at us from the ground. Maybe I was beginning to get the hang of this.

  In addition to being able to spot things on the ground, the scout pilot had to know how to coordinate with his Cobra orbiting above him. Being down on the deck most of the time, there were limits to what a scout could do. Flying the aircraft and having his eyes almost constantly focused on the ground, a scout seldom had time to glance at his instrument panel, let alone look at maps or talk on the radio. Therefore, his Cobra crew did all that for him. The gunship orbited a good distance above, watching every move the scout made. The copilot-gunner in the Cobra read the map, marked coordinates, and transmitted radio messages. He also aimed and fired the turret ordnance when the scout dropped smoke and called for a strike on a ground target. The pilot, the back-seater in this tandem crew AH-1 aircraft, flew the aircraft, always circling in the opposite direction of the OH-6, so that the Loach was always inside the gunship. The pilot kept a constant eye on the scout, so he'd know immediately if his little brother was getting into any trouble.

  This was the hunter-killer team concept. The teamwork between these two elements grew to the point where the Cobra and scout actually anticipated each other's actions. Just a voice inflection over the radio could tell exactly what was happening, or about to happen.

  So the scout had to learn to talk over the radio to keep his gunship informed. All of the scout's radio messages to the Cobra went out over the OH-6's UHF frequency. All of the Cobra's messages back to the scout were transmitted over VHF. Using both UHF and VHF ensured that a radio transmission between scout and Cobra was never garbled because both were talking at the same time over the same frequency. The scout usually talked all the time when he was working down low, conversationally reporting what he was seeing on the ground as the aircraft flew its search pattern. The Cobra crew was normally quiet, breaking silence only once in awhile with two quick movements on the radio transmit button. This staticlike sound told the scout that the Cobra was receiving and understood. Radio conversation took place only when the gun pilot wanted the scout to do something.

  Riding with Jones as copilot-observer, I carefully listened to his ongoing radio talk to the Cobra as he worked his pattern, while I tracked what he was seeing on the ground. As Bill pushed his search circles farther out over the area, he studied the ground below for a sign of traffic, reporting to the Cobra. Foot traffic could be picked up by coming across a trail or a marshy area where the enemy had moved through, leaving footprints, bent elephant grass, or some other sign of passage. From the appearance of the trail, Jones could estimate the approximate number of troops, as well as how old the trail was.

  Footprints that could be seen distinctly indicated light traffic—only a few people. If the trail appeared indistinct and generally messed up, you'd know that heavy traffic had moved along it, walking over each others' foot impressions.

  Bill went on to teach me that the direction of the traffic movement could also be determined by studying the footprint characteristics. Many VC wore what were called Ho Chi Minh sandals—nothing more than a couple of flat pieces of rubber cut from an old tire and strapped to the wearer's foot. The toe and heel parts were of the same shape, but when walking along, more weight was concentrated on the heel, resulting in a deeper impression. In addition, the toe pushed up a little ridge of dirt. By carefully checking out the heel and toe impressions left on the dusty ground, you could tell which way the people on the trail were traveling.

  Suddenly coming across a sign of foot traffic below, Jones radioed the gun: “I've got a trail.” Call signs between scout and gun were usually dropped when there was only one team of aircraft in the area. “It runs off to the northeast, heading zero three zero degrees, to the southwest at two one zero degrees. Indications of light recent traffic—two or three people within the last twelve hours, northeast bound. I'm going to move up the trail and check it out.” Our phones hissed, “C-h-h-h-e-s-h-h … c-h-h-h-e-s-h-h” indicating that the Cobra had copied.

  Bill started moving the OH-6 toward the northeast by using the trail as a guide and pushing his coverage circles out a little farther with each orbit, all the time studying the footprints, and any other signs along the way, to make sure that the enemy party hadn't left the trail.

  “OK, I've got a place off the trail here to the right. Looks like they had supper here last night. I've got the remains of a small cooking fire. It's not smoldering … it's out.”

  The footprints took off again to the northeast, and Jones moved the Loach up the trail. ‘There's a bunker … about fifty feet off to the left of the trail. Looks like a twelve by twelve … maybe a storage bunker … a foot and a half, maybe three feet of overhead cover, well made, freshly camouflaged.”

  “Typically,” Jones briefed me, “the bunkers we find fall into pretty uniform sizes: five by seven, eight by ten, twelve by twelve, fifteen by ten, with a twenty by forty being about the largest.

  “When you report a bunker to the gun, give him the overall outside dimension and the estimated degree of the overhead cover. He'll record all that information on his charts for G-2 back at the base.”

  The scout identified a bunker by its shape, the condition of the camouflage on top of it, and the entrance holes either at the corners or on the flat sides. Those entrances showed up as dark splotches on the ground, and were usually dug in an L shape so Charlie could fire at you from the hole and then get back under cover. The L blunted any rounds fired into the entranceway after him. The smaller bunkers were generally to provide cover for VC moving along the trail. The larger ones were usually storage bunkers for supplies used to sustain Charlie while he was passing through or fighting in the area. Some were used as command posts.

  Those additional days I flew as copilot-observer with Bill Jones were invaluable. I hung on his every word. Jones seemed able to sense trouble ahead. He would know in advance that he might be taking fire from an unseen enemy. I hoped that I would develop some of that warning light instinct.

  CHAPTER 4

  DARKHORSE ONE SEVEN

  It was 8 April 1969, my twenty-first birthday.

  Now, I smiled to myself, I could take a drink legally. I could also vote. I could even get, maybe, a slight reduction in my car insurance rates, if I were back home. It all sounded pretty silly in Vietnam.

  First light was breaking over the Phu Loi runway, and the fact that it was my birthday was the least thing in my mind as I walked out of operations toward the revetment line where the OH-6As were parked.

  Today I'd be on my own for the first time. I would be flying my own ship as the scout half of VR-1 hunter-killer team. Operations had just briefed us that gun pilot Phil Carriss (Three Eight) and I (One Seven) would be making a visual reconnaissance of the banks of the Thi Tinh and Saigon rivers. We'd be starting near Phu Cuong, making our way north along the Saigon River to the intersection of the Big Blue (Song Saigon) and the Little Blue (Song Thi Tinh). Then we'd scout north following the Saigon, winding our way up along the west side of the Iron T to see what Charlie might be up to along the rivers.

  For my first solo scout mission, I would be flying a brand-new OH-6, tail number 249, belonging to crew chief Joe Crockett. I say “belonging to” Joe Crockett because I didn't have a specific airplane assigned to me. Platoon Sergeant Tim “Toon Daddy” McDivitt was the scout platoon sergeant for Troop D (Air), 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry. He told the pilots what airplane they would be flying on a certain day, but the crew chief assigned to an airframe automatically flew with that ship.

  I checked into 249's revetment, which was just across from the operations hootch, and Joe Crockett was waiting for me. I had met him before around the troop while I was flying observer with Jones and Morrison.
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br />   Crockett was a little fellow, about five foot six, and maybe 135 to 140 pounds. He had blond hair and was deeply tanned. I remember him saying that he was from somewhere in California, so maybe he'd had a good start on that tan.

  Crockett was one of the most senior scout crew chief-observers in the troop. He really knew what he was doing when it came to scouting, and handling a green scout pilot. That, of course, was why McDivitt assigned me to Crockett's ship. It was traditional to put a brand-new scout pilot with a very experienced crew chief. That way both men had a better chance of staying alive.

  Crew chiefs were all enlisted ranks. Pilots were either warrants or commissioned officers. But in an OH-6 flying a scouting mission, we were a team. Our lives quite literally depended on how well each of us did our job.

  Crockett and I began walking around the ship, conducting the pre-flight exterior check. Without even looking at the plane's logbook, I could see that 249 was right out of the stateside factory. The OD paint was fresh and shiny. The Quarter Cav red and white insignia practically jumped off the fuselage. The black horse and blue blanket that was the Darkhorse emblem shimmered on the engine cowling doors. Crockett was as proud as a mother hen with a new chick.

  As Crockett and I worked around the ship, I stopped on the right side of the fuselage to stick my finger in the fuel tank filler neck. This was my preferred way of checking the JP-4 level. For some reason, I never completely trusted fuel gauges.

  There was another thing new about number 249. At my request, a new XM27E1 armament subsystem was mounted on the aircraft's left side. This was the rotating six-barrel, 7.62mm minigun that, on slow fire, expended two thousand rounds per minute, and four thousand per minute on fast fire.

  Though I had little support among the experienced scout pilots in the platoon, I wanted a minigun on my ship. I had taken fire on several occasions flying with Jones and Morrison, and I had made up my mind that I wanted to be able to throw a little stuff back when the situation required. Even though Herchert's policy didn't authorize scouts to fly with miniguns, he didn't seem too bent out of shape when I asked for one. Of course, I wasn't sure he knew that I had actually had one installed.