Letters From War—Wild Ride

By Donald Harward

Have you ever played the game “There I was…”? It is a well-known drinking game that is (or was) commonly played in the backrooms of officers’ clubs worldwide. It involves a story—or rather, a fantastic collection of lies—spun together by a host of pilots who are heavily under the influence of alcohol. It starts something like this:

“There I was,” (the mandatory opening line), “inverted, in a flat spin, air medals dangling in my face,” or something similar. Each successive liar adds his spice to the tale, “Number two was on fire,” then, another: “Number one had just been hit by a goose,” and so on, until the tale becomes too long or the number of liars is finally exhausted.

I believe that while each of us “seasoned” aviators probably has a story or two of our own to tell, there is probably a limit to the number of tales of high adventure one can accumulate because, in the business of flying, you don’t always get to survive an adventure. My dad used to say it like this: “Son, in your life, you need to get yourself a few rocking chair stories.” Then with a pause for effect and with a slight warning in his tone, he would say “But just a few!” That advice, coming from a guy who had had three planes shot out from under him and who used to drop high explosive bombs on Nazi Germany while Messerschmitts chewed up the formations, was both sobering and sound.

If you have read any of my previous letters, then you have already heard one or two of my “rocking chair stories.” The other day, while thinking about some near misses I have had, an incident that happened to me one dark night came to mind. The good ones usually happen to you when you least expect them and when you are least prepared. Think of them as little pop quizzes about life. Earn an “F” and you do not get to go on. A grade of “C” will probably get you some extended hospital time and physical therapy, while an “A” or a “B” means you have been either extraordinarily lucky and/or delivered simultaneously by the Almighty himself.

I think it was a Friday evening. I say that because in the traffic pattern at Fort Campbell Army Airfield, there were scarcely any aircraft flying. I was giving a pilot his annual flight proficiency evaluation flight or check ride. All the other pilots were over at the Officers’ Club telling “there I was” stories. Unknown to me, I was about to live through one myself—but this one would be for real.

The evaluation was going very well. We flew around the traffic pattern and as I simulated shutting down one or other of the engines of our MH-47 Special Operations modified Chinook, Rick, the guy I was evaluating, performed the appropriate corrective actions. Rick was a recent addition to the spec-ops (Special Operations) community and was one of our maintenance test pilots. Basically, after we (the mission pilots) flew around and broke things, he and others like him spent long days and nights trying to fix the broken aircraft—while we told our stories, holding long-necked bottles at the ready.

I liked everything I had seen so far. We had done a variety of engine malfunctions and electrical problems, and I had even turned off the AFCS (advanced flight control system). The giant two-headed dipsy dumpster (Chinook) could not possibly fly without some computer constantly fixing its wandering attitude about four thousand times a second and this is the job of the AFCS, which is a little jewel of a system. The Chinook’s giant aft rotor has a nasty tendency to want to pass the front rotor in forward flight, and the wonderful gyros and gizmos in the AFCS computer immediately stop all that nonsense regardless of what the pilot might be doing. Pilots are unaware aware of what the AFCS does—until about three milliseconds after it is turned off in flight, whereupon the hundred-foot long helicopter first tries to swap ends, then roll sideways, then pitch over and crash—all in about two seconds. Nevertheless, flying without AFCS was something I demanded that pilots were proficient at because in combat conditions, there is always a possibility of that valuable little computer being damaged. So we had to know how to fly the machine without the electronic stability. Most guys were not very good at it, and as an instructor pilot, it was my job to take over if the other guy lost control and provide instruction on how I did it.

Anyhow, Rick was better than most with AFCS-off flight, so we departed the traffic pattern for the low-level training area. Once there, we did a variety of terrain flight tasks including landing in a cool little confined area where there was a clearing in the trees barely larger than the aircraft. He didn’t seem to be having any difficulty with that either, so I thought I’d finish the check ride with some instrument flight.

Flying at low altitude—which was less than fifty feet in this case—while wearing night vision goggles is a tricky proposition. It is a regime of flight where one needs complete trust in the guy doing the driving. If he screws the pooch on anything, the helicopter will probably be chopping fire wood long before an instructor can jump on the controls and save the day—or night. We had to be able to fly around at low level with goggles in weather conditions where visibility was as low as half a mile—which isn’t very much at all.

If one were to “punch in” or suddenly lose sight of the ground, then there was a detailed procedure that had to be executed immediately to save one’s bacon and get the aircraft out of harm’s way. The steps were to announce “Inadvertent IMC” (meaning inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions or, simply, you’re in the clouds). The next step was to level the wings (the term is also used in helicopters) and pull in climb power—basically, all the power the engines will give you—and commence an aggressive climb. You would then turn to avoid known obstacles and get on the “guard” radio frequency to get air traffic control (ATC) involved to get help.

I initiated this scenario by holding my map in front of Rick’s goggles while telling him, “I have a tower at twelve o’clock, five hundred metres.” Once again, he demonstrated the correct response. Rick said in an even tone, “I’m inadvertent IMC. Turning left to one eight zero, climbing to three thousand.” Cool. The guy even knew the sector minimum altitude; he was obviously completely in control of the situation. I liked his decision to climb immediately to get away from those pesky oak trees below us, and his smooth execution of the climb.

The thing I liked about ending the check ride in such a way was that it was a less stressful mode of flying and a great transition from the nerve-racking emergencies to controlled flight in a radar monitored environment where someone was talking to us. We levelled at 3,000 feet and I contacted Campbell Approach Control. “Good evening, Campbell. Army “Triple Sticks” is a single Chinook, level at 3,000, heading one eight zero, approximately ten miles south of Clarksville. Requesting an instrument recovery to the airfield.” (I called our Chinook “Triple Sticks”, because the aircraft’s serial number was 24111, so instead of saying “one, one, one”, we simply say triple sticks—it just sounds better).

“Roger, Triple Sticks. Squawk three-two-one-four.” Then, after we were identified:

“Army Triple Sticks, Campbell Approach has you radar contact 15 miles south of the Clarksville VOR. State intentions.” I looked at Rick, who said, “Let’s get an ILS (instrument landing system) approach.”

“Campbell Approach, we would like an ILS to a full stop.”

“Roger that, Triple Sticks. Turn left to zero two zero. This will be vectors to ILS runway two-two.”

This was going very well indeed; so smoothly. In retrospect, it was a setup for what was about to happen. The crew in the back—a flight engineer and a crew chief—were practically asleep and I had relaxed completely. In just a few more minutes, we would be on the ground, and could put this old bird to sleep for the night and, hopefully, get some sleep ourselves.

We followed the ATC vectors until we eventually intercepted the inbound course about thirteen miles from the runway. “Army triple sticks, I show you established on ILS two-two. Contact the tower on frequency one two six point four. Have a good night.”

Rick continued to fly so I dialled in the tower frequency. “Good evening, Tower. Triple Sticks is with you, ILS inbound.”

“Roger that, Triple Sticks. You are cleared to land runway two-two.”

I noticed the glide slope appear on the HSI (horizontal situation indicator instrument). As it passed through the centre lubber line, Rick reduced power and we began our descent. This dude was flying like an airline pilot and finishing a great night with a professional job on the last approach. Had I been awarding a numerical grade for this ride, it would have been in the high nineties.

At five miles, he had all the wind corrections and power figured out, and the aircraft descended smoothly as if locked into that electronic cross we were flying down. As we drew ever closer to the ground, I announced, “Five hundred above,” signalling that he was five hundred feet above the decision height—the point at which he would have to decide either to continue to a landing or go around. “Two hundred above,” I voiced as we descended. Then, “One hundred above.” Rick’s night vision goggles were turned off and still flipped down. I had turned them off earlier to prevent him from looking outside. Their being switched off also provided a great “hood” that confined his visual field of view to just the instrument panel.

“You’re at decision height,” I advised him. “Great job. Take over visually and land abeam taxiway three.” Taxiway three led straight to our parking spot and I was done messing around for the night. As Rick tilted his head back and pulled in power to arrest our descent, I noticed the flight engineer standing in the companionway just behind us. Suddenly, just as Rick increased power, both engines went wide open! With no warning at all, the dammed things just went to full power!

In those days, the Chinook had two very powerful Lycoming L-712 engines that produced 4,500 horsepower each. They were so powerful that the aircraft could maintain cruise flight at maximum gross weight on just one engine! Now, suddenly and violently, both engines had a malfunction called a “high side”, meaning that the governors had failed and both simply went wide open.

With so much power being generated, the rotor system started to over-speed rapidly. The “normal operation” range for the rotor RPM was from 97% to 101% percent. I was looking at a rotor speed approaching 110%! The emergency procedure calls for the pilot to immediately pull an armload of power to load the engine that is high siding. Theoretically, this should reduce the rotor RPM back to within controllable limits immediately. Rick was doing exactly that, but the lightly loaded Chinook was about to spin the rotor blades right off the top of the helicopter. In all my days, I had never seen—or even heard of—two engines high-siding at the same time; it had never happened before! But both torque needles (which indicate individual engine power output) were joined up at around 80% meaning both engines were over-speeding simultaneously! I couldn’t believe it was happening, so I asked—or, more correctly, yelled—“What’s happening?” Rick yelled back, “High side. High side. Both engines.”

OK. We were screwed! There wasn’t an emergency procedure for both engines high siding simultaneously! So I improvised. I announced “I have the controls. Take “one” to ground.” The only thing I could think to do was to pull number one to idle, so that we could focus on dealing with just engine number two. We were climbing very quickly. It had only been seconds and we were already climbing through 1,000 feet and going up at more than 3,000 feet a minute. I squeezed the transmit switch: “Tower, Triple Sticks is declaring an emergency.”

They must have known something was out of the norm because they quickly started inquiring about our fuel state, personnel on board and so forth. “No time, Tower. Clear the runway. I have two runaway engines!” I heard something about crash rescue rolling and something else, but I was too busy trying to fly the thing to worry about anything else.

As soon as Rick pulled number one to ground (an idle position with the engine control lever), the rotor RPM responded immediately and came back down. As it reduced through about 100%, I reduced power and we stopped climbing. The runway was still below me so I lowered the thrust control and we began descending. At around a thousand feet, I added a little power to slow the descent. Without warning, the rotor blades began slowing uncontrollably. The spinning of the rotor blades is all that keeps a helicopter in the air. The atmosphere naturally rejects the helicopter and only the constant thrashing of the blades keeps the things aloft. Some might argue about aerodynamics or some silly physics, but it’s simply not true; it’s all just magic, smoke and mirrors.

I told Rick to give me more power but the blades continued to slow. I bottomed the thrust and, in an instant, that Chinook was in a full-blown autorotation. There was no time left. The ground—thankfully, a runway—was coming up fast. As we passed through 200 feet, we were descending at 2,500 feet per minute. I eased the nose up to start the flare; 100 feet, then 50. I flared hard and pulled in all my remaining power.

The aft wheels slammed into the runway roughly but held. I pulled the nose up twenty degrees and tried to hold it there. I shot a glance inside and saw the engine tachometers decreasing below 35%. Idle was 62% percent, so obviously, both engines had failed at some point. The blades continued to slow. We were going like a bat out of Hades on two wheels and I had to get this thing slowed down. Then the next hammer blow hit us. The rotors were no longer going around fast enough to drive the generators, so they dropped off line, giving us a total electrical failure!

Even though I was an instructor pilot, I didn’t know that the swivel-locks on the aft wheels unlocked when there wasn’t any electrical power (swivel-locks keep the wheels locked fore and aft, and disengage to allow steering the aircraft while taxiing). This came as a huge surprise because suddenly, the wallowing giant started fishtailing wildly from side to side. We went almost completely sideways while still rolling forwards until, finally, the rotor blades slowed so much that I couldn’t hold the nose up any longer. We slid sideways and the front came down heavily. All I could think of was that we were about to roll over, so I yelled “Duck!”

Something reminded me of being in a skidding car; you always turn in the direction of the skid. The nose was sliding around to the left, so I leaned forward and pulled the cyclic into my gut and to the left. I felt the rotor blades beating heavily on their droop stops above my head, seemingly pounding poor Triple Sticks to pieces. For what seemed like an eternity, we skidded around and around. I smashed the brakes with my size twelves and we slid off the runway going backwards!

Then, about as fast as it had started, the helicopter stopped. There was no sound or movement. I sat up, not believing we hadn’t rolled over or caught fire or something. We had touched down about midfield on a runway that was 11,000 feet long, and we were sitting in the grass perhaps two thousand feet from the end, pointing back more than 180? from the way we had come, and the blades had stopped completely. For a long second, we all just sat there looking around. Then the crew chief said, “Sir, we’re smoking, we’re smoking.” Indeed, smoke was coming up from the ruined tires and brakes, and both engines were smoking out of each end. It was pretty dark outside but we could see it anyway.

I ordered everyone out and instructed them to assemble 100 feet off the nose. I heard the crewmembers running down the ramp. Rick had a crazy look on his face. I motioned out with my thumb and he jumped out of the aircraft in about three steps. I got up and looked down the large cargo hold with my flashlight. There was no one left; it was clear. Time to “didi mau” myself and leave the wreck to its fate. I gave about a half second’s thought to fighting the fires but decided I’d rather watch the helicopter burn after what it had just tried to do to all of us and I, too, jumped off.

I met the guys where we had briefed, about a hundred feet in front of the nose of the Chinook. We all watched as the crash rescue vehicles came screaming down a taxiway close to us. Then, incredibly, they turned away from us and went racing to the other end of the runway! Remember, it was very dark and, on a military airfield, lights are kept at a minimum. We all broke out in hysterical laughter as our “saviours” drove away at breakneck speed.

Glancing back at the bird, it didn’t seem to be on fire anywhere—despite the smoke—so I walked back over to it and stared at the immense black form. Tonight had been a date with destiny for all of us. The grim reaper had been in attendance, no doubt, but on this night, through some crazy mix of luck, correct guesses—choosing door number two instead of number one—and so forth, we had cheated his clutches. We would live to fly again. So, too, would this aircraft, although only after it had received two new engines, six tyres, four brakes and a bunch of other parts.

So goes my very real “There I was” story. To tell it engenders all the emotions one experiences in danger and combat. The emotions run back and forth from fear, to confusion, to anger and, finally, to satisfaction and elation—elation at knowing one escaped…but just barely. I have written before about that feeling one gets upon narrowly escaping death. You have to experience it to understand it (but I do not necessarily recommend that you do so) and I cannot begin to describe it. It brings you to a place where you mentally crest a small rise and start down the other side where the downhill slide is irreversible. A change takes place in your very soul. You can never be quite the same again. You have become a veteran of sorts, and you start to see yourself as very mortal, very lucky, and very, very blessed.