9. A Good Flight By Mel Bailey As a maintenance officer I was afforded the chance to fly around the II Corps area, single pilot. The Huey was authorized to be flown with just one pilot but that was rare. In combat flying we always tried to have two pilots as well as a gunner and crew chief on either side manning machine guns. One time I was flying a replacement helicopter back to An Khe with one of the line crew members after I had flown a badly shot up helicopter down to Phu Hiep. This fellow was a big likeable sort, usually unkempt, and he had been filling in as a crew chief. He had also been flying whenever he could and he was getting pretty good. We had also picked up a crew chief because we had been short of one any way and a gunner to replace the one wounded in the first helicopter. In short we looked like a regular mission ship. On the Huey only the right seat has a complete set of controls and normally the co‑pilot would fly there and the aircraft commander would take the left seat. As the only bonafide pilot I was in the right seat and this big fellow, nicknamed
Of course, I would let Knob fly once we were airborne and on top of that we picked up passengers and took them to an intermediate stop at Qui Nhon. At Qui Nhon, while our passengers were disembarking, a Special Forces Captain came up to the Aircraft Commander's window and there sat
As soon as we got airborne, I gave the controls to
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Last modified: Monday June 27th, 2022 |