But as the Army would have it, during Friday night formation of the middle weekend of gun school, 24 of us, including 12 in the gun school, received orders to attend MedEvac school at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, immediately after graduation. There is no such thing as a fair fight-only ones where you win or lose. 01/09/2013. Helicopters - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Were about five miles out. Five miles out from where? Whatd he say? Hell, I dont know. The average age of an employed helicopter pilot is 45 years old. American involvement in February 1973. Over 900,000 patients were airlifted (nearly half were American). but it cant hurt. As a result, less than one percent of all Americans wounded who survived the first 24 hours died. Statista. As they entered a one year combat tour, many pilots heard the ominous rumor that the average life expectancy of a US Army Aviator helicopter pilot in combat was only 19 minutes. [Houk] Testimony by Dr. Houk, Oversight on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, 14 July 1988 page 17, Hearing before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs United States Senate one hundredth Congress second session. There was an adrenaline high, too, and a tremendous sense of accomplishment that I have yet to experience since flying my last mission in Vietnam. A paid subscription is required for full access. [All That We Can Be]. 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, 1.2% were other races. Always make sure someone has a P-38. I have got to pass this on to an Aussie friend of mine, Ian. The initial Army designation was HU-1, which led to the common unofficial nickname of Huey.. z.. Pucker Factor is the formal name of the equation that states the more hairy the situation is, the more of the seat cushion will be sucked up your ass. ", Federal Aviation Administration, Average age of active pilots in the United States from 2002 to 2020, by category* Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/919100/aviation-industry-average-age-of-active-pilots-in-the-united-states-by-category/ (last visited March 04, 2023), Average age of active pilots in the United States from 2002 to 2020, by category* [Graph], Federal Aviation Administration, May 18, 2021. Prayer may not help . Copyright 1995 - 2018 Gary B. Roush, 242 ASHC Muleskinners, May 1968 - May (Three years for There were no Americans involved in any capacity. Would love to chat with Bruce Huffman. Fournisseur de Tallents. It was a well known (and very true) fact that during an emergency exit from an aircraft, if you dont have it strapped to your body, you wont take it with you. Instead of landing and changing seats he tried to do it in mid air. approximately 40,000 who served as helicopter average age of vietnam helicopter pilot - lebel-minsk.by Recent reports in the news media that an American commander ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc are incorrect. They also acted as medical evacuation helicopter pilots when needed. It is a bad thing to run out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas all at the same time. They were heavily armed with mini-guns, machine guns, and various kinds of rockets. Vietnamese where among those taken that day to Tan Son Nhut airport, General The Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network (VHFCN) is a non profit veterans organization dedicated to the fulfillment of the following purposes: To provide a forum for recreational communications amongst a fraternity of aircrew members who served in Vietnam during the period 1961-75 At the conclusive battle of the war (the Fall of Saigon), the . As I look back on my own experiences, two things stand out in my mind that I consider young and stupid.. only 10 to 20 minutes of that time exposed to hostile fire. Steve DaCosta, Cavalier15, June67-June68. The terms Protective Armor and Helicopter are mutually exclusive. Event date is used instead of declared dead date for some of those who were listed as missing in action). Also, it has been incorrectly reported that two of Kim Phuc's brothers were killed in this incident. As mentioned earlier, there was little protection from weapon fire for the pilots, and with body parts exposed on a third seat, we were especially vulnerable. Obviously, I was wrong, but I did not know it then. "The problem is that those who think the Vietnamese haven't cooperated sufficiently think there is some central repository with answers to all the lingering questions," notes Gen. John Vessey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Reagan and Bush administration's designated representative in MIA negotiations. [McCaffrey], Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. There is a reason why these medevac pilots were called our angels in the sky. We who fought the enemy face to face on the ground, whether infantry or recon, knew that if we were wounded, these guys would do anything necessary, face any danger the enemy could present, to get us out of hell and back to the care we needed. I told my roommate, This is it. al.. o.. Phil Marshall, DMZ Dustoff 711, 237th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) Camp Evans and Quang Tri, Vietnam 1969. The biggest responsibility of a helicopter pilot was to fly that helicopter in such a manner as to provide support for the men on the ground. XV, Issue VII. [Westmoreland] Approximately 70% of those killed were volunteers. I graduated from Flight Training 2 day short of a year. magazines, a membership directory and a calendar each year and periodically publishes [People], The evacuees were Vietnamese not American military. confidential. [Nixon], The Vietnam War has been the subject of thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, hundreds of books, and scores of movies and television documentaries. In UH-1C gunnies, a pilot had to master taking off with a 1,000lb overload, persuade the aircraft to hover at an altitude of just three feet, and then dip the nose slightly to achieve forward movement basically skidding and bouncing along the runway to develop enough speed and lift to rise higher. I think I can make it back! was his last message as the aircraft caught fire, rolled inverted and crashed in flames, killing all on board. 20002023 The Veterans Site and GreaterGood. And two are in Africa: Tanzania (October 1995) and Guinea (June 1995). "The aviation units were the sole combat element of the U.S. Army that did not come. . . By the end of the war half of them had been lost. If you are allergic to lead, it is best to avoid a war zone. x.. Medals are OK, but having your body and all your friends in one piece at the end of the day is better. solicitation purposes, or any correspondence related thereto. The average age of the 58,148 killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years (Although 58,169 names are in the Nov. 93 database, only 58,148 have both event date and birth date. A Scout team consisted of a pilot, a Door Gunner and an observer. Its just what they do. During his two tours in Vietnam, Col. Moore flew 2,752 combat medevac mission and transported 2,952 wounded men back to the medical help they needed. Most of the Commissioned Officers were older. You will get a clear sense of what they were up against and how they conducted themselves. [McCaffrey], Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than our non-vet age group. by | Jun 5, 2022 | curtain suppliers in dubai | riverside cafe medicine park, ok menu | Jun 5, 2022 | curtain suppliers in dubai | riverside cafe medicine park, ok menu The third seat was installed in our combat aircraft to accommodate the well above average size of our family jewels, which were required to complete most of the missions we flew in Vietnam. (So I guess that makes three Young and Stupids. The incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three day battle between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the village of Trang Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) who were trying to force the NVA out of the village. confidential. https://www.vhpa.org. The radioman on the ship would tell them Cleared for a port quarter approach. The silence on the radio was the proverbial pregnant pause, and I could imagine the conversation inside the Huey cockpit. Another Huey pilot explained, We were expected to perform simulated missions like we were in Vietnam. Register in seconds and access exclusive features. While there are still officially more than 2,200 cases, there now are only 55 incidents of American servicemen who were last seen alive but aren't accounted for. The planes doing the bombing near the village were VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of South Vietnamese troops on the ground. Please create an employee account to be able to mark statistics as favorites. First, one has to understand what a hoist mission is and why we did them. On one particularly difficult night MedEvac in the mountains, all our windows fogged up as we dropped from 7,000 feet through a hole in the clouds to pick up a Soldier with a head wound. The UH-1 evolved from a 1955 US Army competition for a new utility helicopter. Vietnam War Facts, Stats and Myths - US Wings One out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. Access to this and all other statistics on 80,000 topics from, Show sources information Translation: There are bad guys all around, weve got wounded, get in here NOW before they die or we have more wounded, and you have to come back again. Published by on October 31, 2021. We especially were concerned about the troops we were there to support. on VHFCN (http://www.vhfcn.org) , Heli-Vets and FaceBook also another FaceBook site. . was typical of the continual commentary from the enlisted crew members. Event date is used instead of declared dead date for some of those who were listed as missing in action) [CACF] Harnage, d.. Yet undoubtedly every plane in Laos carried opium at some time, unknown to the pilot and his superiors. Thank you. Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture was Vietnamese. 75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled. They also acted as the means of supply of ammunitions, equipment and food. [Houk]. [CACF]. Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia - a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the close of the war." Always smiling and never hurt anyone, I would guess. We believe that the Huey along with the Huey Cobra have more combat flight am.. Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. An automobile accident or other traumatic event also can cause it. Membership is open to all helicopter pilots who flew in herriman high school soccer roster. [3], Battlefield Viet Nam Episode 5 "The Undeclared War", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Chopper_(Vietnam)&oldid=1133354489, This page was last edited on 13 January 2023, at 10:36. We were an easier target during the day, but unlike at night when we kept all the lights off, we could see what we were doing! Also "Estimating the Number of Suicides Among Vietnam Veterans" (Am J Psychiatry 147, 6 June 1990 pages 772-776). [VHPA 1993], The helicopter provided unprecedented mobility. Section 501(c)(19) of the Internal Revenue Service. of 21 year old Scotch purchased in 1971 by Brian Novak one of the original From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. Did you know the average life expectancy of a US Army Huey pilot in At least, I believe that is how I would have felt had it been me. When they saw one flying balls out, they knew it was a Dustoff on an urgent mission. A Huey pilot later with the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion (AHB) at Pleiku, recalled one student who, flush with success after his first solo, decided to see what it was like in the empty instructors seat, but knew he would have to change back to land. Please note: This Many men volunteered for the draft so even some of the draftees were actually U.S. active certificated pilots - number 1990-2020, Worldwide aircraft fleet age by region 2020-2030, Air traffic - passenger growth rates forecast 2019-2040. If you lose you We dont have any place for you to land, so just hang your butts out in the open sky for several minutes so any kid with a bow and arrow can shoot you down, and Gee, those red crosses on your helicopter sure make great aiming points, dont they? Small, two seat TH-55 Osages were also used. By 1967, 600 pilots were being graduated per month. In my mind, the only way I would. Helicopters needed far more hands on piloting than fixed wing types. Show publisher information Without that commitment, Communism would have swept all the way to the Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great strategic importance to the free world. Thank you for your service. . History of the founding of the VHPA written by This freed Marine quotas at Pensacola which could be used to . Helicopter Pilot Demographics and Statistics In The US - Zippia In other words, it took a man with a huge pair of Brass Balls but with the ability to know when to use them but with the brains to know when to hold them. It 5 Stars . That sinister-sounding term was coined after the war) Orange was sprayed at three gallons per acre that was the equivalent of .009 of an ounce per square foot. Ground troops typically did not enter a sprayed area until four to six weeks after being sprayed. I made a pedal turn (U-turn) about 200 feet in the air, probably over some bad guys, and hovered back in over the trees. 58,169 were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.59 million who served. ag.. Oh, Sugar! (Not my exact word.) We thank God for these pilots and crews who fearlessly went into our hell on our behalf day in and day out, during the Vietnam War. Wainwright Station [People]. I dont think so. Search: Average Age Of Vietnam Helicopter Pilot. Shortly after arriving at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, I learned that those of us with the highest flight grades would attend a two-week gun school near the end of training, while the rest learned formation flying. As explained by Peter E. Davies in his book UH-1 Huey Gunship Vs NVA/VC Forces Vietnam 1962-75, many US Army pilots volunteered for combat simply because they wanted to fly the UH-1. The third seat was for our testicles. It wasnt easy, and I will now confess that my depth perception almost was not good enough to pass my initial flight physical, but I made it. If I had gone down over land, I probably would not have taken my weapon with me. Myth: The media have reported that suicides among Vietnam veterans range from 50,000 to 100,000 - 6 to 11 times the non-Vietnam veteran population. The Pilots of 1st of the 9th Cav were and yes still are the best. Those Hueys were their horses and they rode into battle en masse, to deliver their troops and evacuate the wounded. . Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for NEW 2008 HASBRO GI Joe Helicopter Pilot Wild Bill 25th Anniversary FREE SHIPPING at the best online prices at eBay! Further proof of these facts can be found at a recent Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) reunion. The VC were surprised and soundly defeated. I was okay to fly helicopters in the Army, but not to drive a jeep! Later, the crew became a two-man pilot team. As they entered a one year combat tour, many pilots heard the ominous rumor that the average life expectancy of a US Army Aviator helicopter pilot in combat was only 19 minutes. When we were on short final approach over the landing zone, I heard small arms fire and my brand-new Crew Chief yelled Were taking fire!, I pulled power into the rotor system to get out of there as quickly as I could, when the radio operator on the ground called out Dustoff, where are you going?. Epilogue: Most people who see photos of Dustoff Hueys in Vietnam observe only the outside of the aircraft. Maybe it was only three miles . Refining close formation skills was an immediate requirement, as airborne assaults could involve a tight gaggle of up to 40 helicopters, including ten gunships. But come look for us, will ya? The claimed flying aces of the Vietnam War, pilots who shot down five or more enemy aircraft, include 19 North Vietnamese pilots (six MiG-17 and 13 MiG-21 pilots), [1] : 228 and five Americans. The BSR (Bang Stare Red) Theory states that the louder the sudden bang in the helicopter, the quicker your eyes will be drawn to the gauges. Age 65 to 69 --------$250.00 "Average Age of Active Pilots in The United States from 2002 to 2020, by Category*. 2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. Running is better than crawling. View complete answer on zippia.com on 29 April 1975 from UPI's offices on the top floor of the Saigon Hotel which (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA. come right . Being scared in the sense of risking ones life for others, for sure, but also a sense of being scared that you will not be up to the standards of your fellow pilots. (One has to realize that there was virtually no protection for the pilots from the front and little from the sides or underneath.) Age 60 to 64 --------$350.00 He was an assault helicopter pilot, in other words a gunship pilot. We put him in the back of the cargo compartment with his M-16 and a helmet, hooked him up to the intercom, and we were off. Vietnam seldom flew above 1,500 feet which is traffic pattern altitude for ab.. Thousands of Vietnam Veterans earned medals for bravery every day. Every helicopter flying in Vietnam had one real purpose: To help the grunt. If you are wearing body armor, they will probably miss that part. NEW 2008 HASBRO GI Joe Helicopter Pilot Wild Bill 25th Anniversary FREE The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. Accessed March 04, 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/919100/aviation-industry-average-age-of-active-pilots-in-the-united-states-by-category/, Federal Aviation Administration. While it may be possible to ward off this natural event some of the time, it cannot, despite the best efforts of the crew, always be prevented. I guess that woke him up, as the next thing I heard was his rifle plugging away at a mound of dirt just outside his door and about 30 feet down. t.. By contrast, there still are 78,000 unaccounted-for Americans from World War II and 8,100 from the Korean conflict. They will always be our heroes, our Angels in the Sky.. Background [ edit ] On 11 December 1961, the USS Core (T-AKV-41) docked in Saigon with 32 U.S. Army Piasecki H-21 helicopters and 400 crewmen of the 8th Transportation Company (Light Helicopter) and the 57th . Please call HQ on 800-505-VHPA (8472) to sign up to be a life The gunships that were escorting him told Al to put it on the ground right away because of the serious leak. The Wall), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, DC, [All That We Can Be] All That We Can Be by Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler, [Westmoreland] Speech by General William C. Westmoreland before the Third Annual Reunion of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) at the Washington, DC Hilton Hotel on July 5th, 1986 (reproduced in a Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Historical Reference Directory Volume 2A). I already knew the difference between port and starboard, and it wasnt that hard to figure out beam and quartering approaches. [1996 Information Please Almanac], There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. No matter what the make up of the team was they flew in helicopters that were made with the intention of dispensing a superior amount of fire power on the enemy. I have to take one thing back. Scared that maybe, just maybe, youll fail your mission where someone else just like you would have succeeded. rotary wing aircrews that flew in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam Era. Those trainers were so small you could lean in them to make the thing turn. The second pilot you will meet is retired CWO2 Allan Potter. The first one you will meet is retired Army Col. Douglas Moore, a medevac pilot in Vietnam. You will get a sense of what that was like from listening to his stories. of what you can do online at https://www.vhpa.org/memhelp.htm#ODA, To preserve the legacy of all Vietnam Helicopter Pilots, an endowment [email protected] [2]:3, The helicopters transported over 1,000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) paratroopers for an assault on a suspected Viet Cong (VC) stronghold 10 miles (16km) west of Saigon. Magazines are included with VHPA membership and are available to non-members with a The great majority of these efforts have erroneously portrayed many myths about the Vietnam War as being facts. I can personally remember one time when we were pinned down due to superior enemy fire from a tree line and a weapons platoon helicopter (Cobra) sat just off to our right and lit up the tree line with such superior fire that the enemy was destroyed. Our single-engine UH-1H Hueys did not float in the water very well. Otherwise, if we got tangled up, it could cause the aircraft to crash. v.. A free fire zone has nothing to do with economics. You will meet and hear the stories of three U.S. Army helicopter pilots who flew missions in Vietnam in this video. aj.. It was an average age for most of the other Army helicopter pilots I flew with in the 237th Medical Detachment in northern I Corps near the DMZ. * Includes pilots with an airplane and/or a helicopter and/or a glider and/or a gyroplane certificate. The building is the Pittman Apartments, a 10 I have posted your reply to Steve on here so he will be able to read it. solicitation purposes, or any correspondence related thereto. . With a fair amount of apprehension, it was now the moment of truth. Could we really do what we had been trained to do, without letting anyone down? My father mentioned a pilot and I was curious if this was one of the same. In fact, not at all, since we usually flew with the doors open, even at night. So, too, can the ones addressed To Whom It May Concern. ad.. The additional weight of patients on the end of the hoist as they were lifted off the ground further complicated the stability of the aircraft. There, the new guys learned how to apply their recently found skills to combat situations. DID after the U.S. Congress cut off funding. San Antonio, Texas 78208-0091, Copyright 2023 DUSTOFF Association | Powered by Barefoot Pixel, USAAAD conducts life-saving rescue of two civilians near Mount Adams. The Vietnam War helped medical progress in this area. The longer you stare at the gauges the less time it takes them to move from green to red. They gave us classes on what altitudes to fly to avoid certain types of enemy fire small arms or 0.51 cal. When I found out that I was assigned to be a MedEvac pilot, I was devastated. Normally, one has to push a button to talk over the intercom in a military aircraft, but on a hoist mission, we turned it to hot mikes, because we all needed our hands for other things. That was probably the lowest point of my Vietnam flying experience, and I never forgot it. Many of these brave men went from High School to Flight School. If the rear echelon troops are really happy, the front line troops probably do not have what they need. One guy was 19, while the oldest (not counting our Commanding Officer) was the 28-year-old XO, Army slang for the second in command, Executive Officer. In action, gunships sometimes left their lights on for night missions, for according to another Huey pilot, We had a doctrine that wed rather have the enemy shoot at the gunship than at the lesser armed slicks.. When called upon, a Pilot did not wait for approval from his crew, becuse he knew his crew would never say No. w.. . Hello. Maturity, self-confident, bravery, willing to take chances, courageous, and yes fun-loving are the attributes that make a great pilot. Decisions made by someone above you in the chain-of-command will seldom be in your best interest. You only have access to basic statistics. It was called "shell shock" and other names in previous wars. When I read the quickly handwritten sheet for this particular mission, I knew before we left that it was going to be an insecure hoist. Dustoff pilots with their unique seating arrangement is where that statement originated. Learn more about how Statista can support your business. They were Kim's cousins not her brothers. Uh, thats a can opener for those of you who arent military.
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