Controlled Flight

Memories are fickle, they can’t always be trusted. But you often have one forced to the surface by one or another trigger. When that happens I like to at least write it down, because you never know when it will pass into obscurity. I don’t believe that my memories and photos need to be preserved but I usually enjoy the nostalgic trip when I browse through them.

The latest trigger was the tragic crash that took the lives of nine innocents including Kolby Bryant. Which will most likely be determined to be a result of ” controlled flight into terrain”. I’ve lost too many to that phenomenon. This story is about one pilot that avoided ” controlled flight into terrain”.

My brother and I grew up knowing we would be pilots. At that time the airline pilot was “the” career. They would work an average of 11 days a month and were paid an obscene amount of money. I figured I’d fly for the military. My brother figured he would be a rich contractor who could buy any airplane he wanted. Roger figured he would be an airline pilot.

Then the draft spread it’s dark shadow over everyone in my generation. It affected all of our decisions. I got a super scholarship from the Navy. That should have kept me safe from the draft and given me a great path to Navy wings. Ralph enrolled in College aiming for a business degree and hoping to out grow the draft. Roger was determined to get hired by the airlines ( United assured him that all he needed was a commercial license and they would hire him ). He got his commercial before graduating from high school and then they told him that he would have to ” get his military obligation behind him ” because they weren’t going to spend a ton of money training him to have him get drafted.

We each had our own different experiences.

I dropped out of college and got drafted. The rest is, as they say, history.

Ralph got a letter in his junior year telling him that he could expect to be drafted ( lose his “married student” draft status ) as soon as he graduated. It worked, after graduation he enlisted in the Marines. He chose the Marines because they told him that they would pay for all his uniforms. That, plus he figured that the Marine training before flight school might come in handy if he ever got shot down. Remember, we were young and totally trusted recruiters.

Roger signed up with the Marines as an enlisted man. Somehow, he managed to go to OCS and get into a flight program where he trained with the Air Force, got Air Force wings and then got Navy wings and flew the A6 for the Marines. The recruiters that talked him into that path were nowhere to be found after he signed.

We all ended up in Vietnam together and Roger and I even ventured north to Da Nang to visit my brother, who was flying F4s. We ended up missing Ralph because the day before he was sent to the field to do a 30 day tour with the grunts as a FAC. The Marines believe a pilot on the ground is essential for calling in and adjusting successful air strikes. How he got that prestigious assignment supposedly had something to do with tackling a USO donut dolly who was dancing with some senior officer . But that is another story.

But I digress. I was intending to tell you about my first helicopter ride. The recent tragic crash of a helicopter in Calabasas brought back the usual memories of lost friends. A career in aviation includes losing many friends throughout the years. The first occurred during flight school as two of our class had a mid air collision. One aircraft ( both were TH55s ) descended into another ( they were both on final to parallel runways ) and got his landing skids tangled in the rotor blades of the aircraft below.

There were many friends lost over the years since; quite a few were officially determined to be the result of  ” controlled flight into terrain “. The percentage of crashes that were determined to be ” pilot error ” were always in the mid ninety percent and most of these crashes fell into that category. Almost all accidents were attributed to the pilot making a bad decision and ending up entering IFR conditions inadvertently. It is quite common for the last words of of the pilot were something to the effect that they were attempting to climb out of inadvertent IFR on their instruments.

Back to the story. We moved to Calabasas in 1955. Soon thereafter, an Army H23 helicopter landed in the field next to our house. Totally built up today, it was a mostly vacant land in a development called “Craftsman Center”. The pilot, an Army captain, was making a precautionary landing because he was being forced lower and lower by the overcast. He was following Hwy 101 and knew he was close to the top of the Calabasas grade that climbed out of the San Fernando Valley and descended to Las Virgenes Rd on the other side. He was concerned with both the clouds extending to the ground and the electrical lines crossing the highway at the top.

He ( Captain Cody, I believe ) stayed with us that night and  he was able to continue his flight north the next day. Before he left he gave me a “ride” in the helicopter. I think it was just a bit of fast hovering but it was a ride  to me; I was 7 or 8. I don’t think my brother got a ride but I’m not sure. I do remember it was written up in the local paper complete with photo of us at a hover in the field. It gave me the bug; a tad bit ironic considering that it was the result of Capt. Cody making the right decision at the right time. I’d like to think I’ve made that same right decision when I needed to. I know I have sometimes, but I can recall times that I pushed it way past a go/no go point also.

The fact that I got away with it doesn’t make me a better pilot, just a luckier one. Just another shovel full of survivors guilt. We all have enough of that.