Free Surprised at Being Alive: An Accidental Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond by Robert F. Curtis Page A

companies, the average age of the pilots was around 21, maybe 23 tops. The old-timers, for example our major commanding officer (CO), were probably 35. In the states, I had seen colonels and some ancient, passed-over-for-promotion majors who were in their 40’s, but this man looked at least 70. A 70-year-old pilot. In his black pants and short-sleeved white shirt he looked even stranger, since I was familiar with green flight suits and rolled down sleeves and pistols worn in cowboy holsters, just like the uniform I had on. No pistol, no flight suit, just a short-sleeved white shirt and black trousers on a 70-year-old pilot….
    Handing me a headset instead of a flight helmet, he put down the chart and began to start the airplane. Unlike the military procedures where one pilot calls out the steps from a checklist, he just started moving the switches at a rapid pace without referring to anything.
    He talked as he started the aircraft, “I used to fly helicopters, but they’re just too noisy for me now. I liked the CH-21 though. You ever fly a CH-21? Nah, you’re too young for CH-21’s. Maybe a CH-34? Nah, you’re too young for them, too. Probably flew OH-23’s at Wolters, I’ll bet, you being tall and all,” he said, as the left, then right engines started. Obviously he had been an Army pilot in another life, another life a long time ago.
    Reaching across in front of me he got the door to the airplane and pulled it closed. We put on our headsets as he pointed at a thumb switch on the control wheel that operated the intercom.
    “We’ll be on our way in a minute or two. Here, you can navigate,” he said with a laugh, throwing me the rumpled chart he had been studying.
    He laughed because no navigation was required between Phu Bai and Da Nang today. From the ramp where we were parked, we could see the mountains that ran down to the sea to the southeast. Mountains on your right and the water on your left and you would find Da Nang just on the other side of the first ridgeline you came to as you flew south. Just don’t take the easy path through the gap in the hills. It’s called the Hai Van Pass, and is littered with the wreckage of four or five aircraft that found out the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) likes to set up machine guns there every now and then to catch pilots sneaking through the pass under the clouds, instead of going out to sea between the shore and the island a mile out. Watch for them coming and then just hold the trigger down as they go by, easy…
    He was already taxiing when he called tower for clearance and just glanced down the runway before pulling out. The throttles were already coming on as we left the taxiway, and in a short distance we were in the air and climbing out toward the mountains over a junkyard full of wrecked aircraft just off the end of the runway and the perimeter wire and bunkers. Never having had much to do with fixed-wing aircraft, I was somewhat surprised that he handled all the controls as easily as I did a helicopter. It would be logical that he did, but flying fixed-wing aircraft was not a natural act to me.
    Reaching 5,000 feet, he turned the aircraft south. How different the ground looked from the cockpit of a fixed wing. No chin bubble to look through, wings in the way when you looked off to the side. No door gunners in the rear and no rotor vibrations, it felt unnatural. Instead of heading out to sea to fly between the islands and the mountains as we always did, he just climbed a little higher and went over the Hai Van well above machine-gun range.
    On the 20-minute flight he never stopped talking. He talked of Beavers and Otters and Bird Dogs and other old fixed-wing aircraft that were disappearing day by day. Canadian built, Beavers and their bigger brothers, Otters, were single-engine tail-draggers meant for hard service in the bush of Canada and Alaska and other wild places. They carried two pilots and cargo/passengers. The Bird Dog was a Cessna, Kansas-built and