Harry Reasoner had helicopter drivers nailed in 1971.
ABC NEWS COMMENTARY
By Harry Reasoner
During the Viet Nam War
16 February 1971


You can't help but have the feeling that there will come a future generation of men, if there are any future generations of men, who will look at old pictures of helicopters and say, "You've got to be kidding."

Helicopters have that look that certain machines have in historical drawings. Machines or devices that came just before a major breakthrough. Record -changers just before the lightweight vinyl LP for instance.

Mark Twain once noted that he lost belief in conventional pictures of angels of his boyhood when a scientist calculated for a 150-pound men to fly like a bird, he would have to have a breast bone 15 feet wide supporting wings in proportion.

Well, that's sort of the way a helicopter looks.

The thing is helicopters are different from airplanes An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or incompetent piloting, it will fly.

A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other.

And if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying immediately and disastrously.

There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

That's why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant, extroverts. And helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble.

They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.

All of this, of course, is greatly complicated by being shot at. American helicopter pilots are being shot at more often and more accurately these days from Khe Sahn to Tchepone than at almost any other time in this whole War.

It's been a helicopter war all along. And the strange, ungainly, unlovable craft have reached the peak of being needed and the peak of being vulnerable at the same moment.

Everyone who has flown over combat zones in VN in a helicopter knows the heart-stopping feeling you get when you have to go below 2.000 feet.

Well the men going in and out of Laos rarely get a chance to fly that high.

They must be very brave men indeed.

This is a War we could not have considered without helicopters.

The pilots are beginning to feel like Mark Twain's man who was tarred and feathered.

If it weren't for the honor of the thing they would just as soon have missed it.

Just for grins, somebody look up how many helicopters were shot down in Viet Namn. Then look up how many helicopter pilot POW's were returned after the war.
I'm sorry, it's been a bad couple of day's and I got remembering. I was not old enough to make Viet Namn, but most of my hero's did.

a64pilot wrote:I was not old enough to make Viet Namn, but most of my hero's did.

I cut my teeth in aviation in the late 70's flying on a helicopter crew for the Forest Service. We had several pilots in the years I was there and every single one had recently been in SEA. We used to do gun runs and sat around campfires talking about their experiences. I still know a number of older now SEA helicopter pilots and crewmen as I work for a helicopter manufacturing company (one which you would happen to be very familiar with).

Interestingly, I hit up all the recruiters in about 1978 or so seeing if I could get a flight school spot. Of course, my timing was waaayyyy off.

I could have sworn the the old 269 drove the main transmission off the engine and only the tailrotor was driven by V belts but it's been a loonnng time since I fiddled with one.

Wayne

Wayne,
It has been a long time. All I'm sure of is that you could turn both rotors, by turning either. I think the freewheeling unit was in the big pulley on top. I loved the little LOB. For that matter everything designed by Hughes was a pilots machine. Do remember what LOB meant?

The Hughes 269 had, as a64 said, a collection of v-belts that drove the transmission. These were very short, very skukum little V belts.

The V-belts that drive the tail rotor on the Scorpion and Exec series of helicopters are VERY long, very small, v-belts. Each is approximately3 or 4 feet in length. Each is a single belt, so a failure of one belt means no mo tail rotor. Generally considered a bad thing.

Whereas, in the Hughes 269, the failure of one of the five drive belts is not a big deal, since there are four other belts there to carry the load. In fact, the loss of one belt would probably not be detectable in flight.

I guarantee you that a failure of one tail rotor drive belt on a Scorpion would be noticed by the pilot.

Note that the newest generation of these helicopters has a shaft drive tail rotor, just like the Hughes 269.

Many helicopters use relatively short multiple V-belts to drive the transmission-Enstrom, Hughes, etc.

MTV

I used to be in an Army Guard Unit. Most of the guys I flew with flew in "Nam". We had several discussions of AF pilots getting shot down and taken POW, vs Army Pilots being taken POW. None of the guys knew of any Army Pilots taken POW. They were usually executed on the spot.

Also the AF made a big deal on how they would send in the Jolly Greens to rescue the downed pilots, but I was told Army Pilots saved more Jet Jocks then the Jolly's did.

A little animosity there ah?

Concerning the Hughs 269, I've got a few hundred hours giving dual in them. They did have V belts, but if one belt started to show any wear, all belts were to be replaced. I really enjoyed that helicopter, but I'm not interested in any homebuilt helicopter.

As for someone teaching them self and endangering people on the ground? Refer to the above concerning Army Pilots taken POW.

The Robinson R22 is also driven by a belt system. There have been over 3600 produced so far. Also, two very good books about Army helicopter operations in SEA, "Why didn't you get me out?" by Frank Anton about his two and a half years as a POW, and "Low level hell" by Hugh Mills about OH-6 Scout operations. And of course there is always "Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason. All good reads.

Regarding my post about Frank Anton's book, he was actually a POW for a lot longer than two and a half years.