Vietnam helicopter ops
 

I notice the interest in Hueys at the MVPA convention and I was reminded of the best book I have ever read on helicopter operations in Vietnam. This was written by Robert Mason and is titled 'Chickenhawk'. It is an excellent read and gives a first hand account of his training, deployment and operational experience which were at various times, exciting, hair raising and absurd.

David

Yep - a copy here on my shelf..

"Never let a soldier tell you where to land the helecopter"

tense with drama, yet funny.

Ever read Brandywines War? Catch 22 of VN.

Chickenhawk is unique in small scale war memoirs in that there is a corresponding book that details the infantry side of the operations he was involved with. Both books very closely align with the facts of the story.

The other book is "We Were Soldiers Once and Young" - made into a Mel Gibson film. Chickenhawk is mentioned often.

Great read in two parts. The first is the unit Chickenhawk was supporting and their fantastic defensive fire-fight and subsequent victory and the second is of the unit who relieved them and were slaughtered due to unbelievable leadership incompetence.

The best helicopter book I have read is the just released "APACHE" which relates British attack helicopter operations in Afghanistan. The second half is so exciting it was impossible to put down. The Americans did not have a monopoly on useless officers as you will read

Lang

Have to agree with both Motto and Lang: three excellent books mentioned there that I can't rate highly enough.

Add to them Harry Benson's 'Scram' about helicopter ops in the Falklands: gripping stuff avoiding Argentine Pucara G/A aircraft and other difficulties.

Not purely helicopter, but Robbins 'The Ravens' about light air/nap of the earth ops over Laos is another gripping narrative.

Dave, no Iroquois at the Cleveland convention, but there was an air component in the form of a nicely restored and airworthy B-25 and a couple of other lighter aircraft, plus some big un-restored lumps from the freighter version of the B-29. Combined with an original LCVP 'Higgins boat', it made for a more diverse show that usual. The Higgins was of particular interest: not much timber between you and the incoming 7.92-mm at 1100 rounds per minute. No wonder so many didn't even get onto the beach on June 6.

Mike :salute:

Miike

The "Ravens" is certainly the best Vietnam air book after "Thud Ridge". As an ex-army pilot I relate closely to the Bird Dog operations. There is also a bit about my beloved Porters operated by Air America.

Observation and FAC pilots (even USAF ones) just called it "low flying", "nap-of-the-earth" is an Air Force weasel words expression. Probably the Army has been infected with double-talk BS by now and actually have that expression in their vocabulary.

I went to a Ravens reunion dinner in USA about 20 years ago and like the SAS/Green Beret etc veterans, there were 100 Ravens in the whole Vietnam war and 250 of them are still alive!

Lang

I stand terminalogically corrected! (Is that a word?)

I agree, Lang, and 'When Thunder Rolled' and 'Cheating Death', the latter about air rescue ops in Laos & Vietnam, are certainly 'up there' with the two mentioned.

For a more personal view of the air war over North Vietnam (from Thailand bases), I found the bio of Robin Olds, 'Fighter Pilot' to be outstanding - not that it has anything to do with helicopters, it's just an excellent book about the stresses of flying ops, particularly with the overarching political restrictions imposed from a very safe and remote Washington. It cost the US a lot of pilots & aircraft.

I helped pull a Porter apart once, at Oakey, and stuffed it onto a truck for transport to Canberra. I still marvel at the dexterity of the Porter pilots weaving between the trees during firepower displays at Pucka. Low flying at its most impressive. The closest I got was in a Kiowa and a Blackhawk flying at zero plus a bit (There you are Dave, back to helicopters!)

Mike :salute:

Mike

You have undoubtedly seen this movie, made by the Australian Army in the 70's. Good music. I did the Porter low flying at Oakey and on a Divisional exercise in the Hunter Valley.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F10219/

Lang

Pretty impressive Porter flying, looks like you had a bit of fun doing that Lang.

Ken

How about a quick "Nap" around the paddock?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYtRCC7gSN4

Tony and Mike

That was one of my boys from 173 General Support Squadron, Laurie Serecini A really nice bloke and cool pilot, haven't seen him for 20 years, probably flying a 747 somewhere - or maybe owns a cake shop in Melbourne?

I seem to recall the first film "The Green Machine" annoyed a lot of the army because Aviation Corps got so much of the time but the producer thought the flying went good with the 1812 Overture.

As a result of public feedback from "The Green Machine" which was also shown before a major feature at the movies, the flying received so many comments they decided to bombard them with a full Porter low flying clip. Also shot at Oakey.

That flying was absolutely standard stuff, not for show. In the days when fixed wing were still doing close battlefield observation and artillery Air OP the only way to survive shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles was to scurry around in the shrubbery and do a 5 second pop-up - in a different place each time.

Pop-up and get a fix on a target, work out the grid reference (from a map on your knee without a copilot while missing trees at 20 feet). Give the fire mission to the artillery, get yourself back in the area of the target, call "fire" and get the "shot" and time of flight from the guns. 5 seconds before impact the guns would call "splash" and you would pull up into a big wing over, reaching the top just as the shell hit, see the picture and work out a correction as you were back into the trees and wander around repeating the procedure until the job was done.

Hell, I just loved it!

These days it is all helicopters who can hover below the trees, pop up just high enough (in a different spot each time) to get their eyes on the target and pop back down with half the time exposed with one of the two pilots doing nothing but concentrating on flying and the other on directing the guns.

Damn wooses! I think that was what an American Army Pilot called me when he was telling me about directing guns in Italy in a 50mph and 65 horsepower Piper Cub in WW2.

Lang

Yes, he looks pretty cool calm and collected: both films are really nice to watch, and the Green Machine one is now much more meaningful since we know the Porter Pilot is an MLU-er!

Thanks, Lang, some nice insights there. Much appreciated. (and I do like the music: ... what can top the 1812 and some cool flying sequences over breakfast? )

Nice find of the second film, Tony: thanks.

Mike :salute: