The "Buck" Stops Here

Coatimundi at Iguazu Falls - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Cuernos of Torre del Paine, Chile - photo by JoAnn Sturman

By Steven R Oberst

My first helicopter flight assignment was at a rescue unit on a northern frontier base flying support missions for the strategic missile wing. Normally an Air Force assignment lasted about three years then you moved on to another assignment. However, I found myself in the middle of the post Viet Nam era of a shrinking military. I watched as pilot after pilot in our unit left the Air Force. During this time frame only three new pilots were assigned to my unit. By my fifth year the unit had gone from 15 pilots to just 6. In addition to myself, our unit consisted of the Commander, Major Rhineland, the Operations Officer, Captain Bridgeport, 1/Lt, Kris Polly, who was a newly designated instructor pilot, 2/Lt Mike Hotel with six months in the unit, and the most recent arrival, 2/Lt Buck Famous who was the son of well known VIP, Milt Famous.

Each month our unit was funded to fly 480 hours and headquarters expected you to fly every minute of it. It was a big no-no for a commander to turn in hours, so there was always pressure to fly the time allotted. The unit had six helicopters, so each helicopter was flown an average of 80 hours per month. With only six pilots, each of us would also be expected to fly 80 hours per month. However, neither the commander nor the operations officer wanted to fly that much, and 2/Lt Buck Famous had not yet been checked out as a pilot, so all he could do was fly as a co-pilot or with an instructor. This meant that Kris, Mike and I were flying 120 or more hours per month.

The typical day was eleven or twelve hours for each of us. Basically we would come to work, strap into a helicopter, and fly support missions all day with breaks for refueling and waiting for passengers. By this time in my flying career I had about 150 hours of instructor time, and I had been the unit chief of flight standardization and evaluation for about six months. Normally, this position went to a more senior pilot, but given the exodus of pilots, I was the most senior pilot. Kris and I flew training missions with the other pilots in order to maintain proficiency in emergency procedures and meet minimum training requirements for a pilot.

Needless to say, with so few pilots in the unit getting Buck checked out as an aircraft commander, who could share part of the load, was a high priority. It normally took 45-60 days for a new pilot to be ready. Kris created a training program for Buck that included a considerable amount of local area familiarization and navigation. We expected that new pilots coming to us from Ft Rucker and the 1550th Aircrew Training and Test Wing at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico would not need any additional training in instrument flying or emergency procedures.

Buck was scheduled to fly as copilot for as many hours as he could handle. Logically, this was the best way for him to learn to navigate in the northern plains and find his way to and from the different missile sites. Visual flight navigation was a very basic skill that involved time, distance and heading. Pilots needed to read a map, fly the correct heading, adjust for the wind, monitor ground speed, and look for visual cues on the ground. Those first few weeks in the unit all of us flew with Buck, and all of us came to the same conclusion: Buck could not navigate.

How many ways can you get lost trying to find a missile site in the middle of the prairie? For Buck the answer was “many.” He was apparently unable to translate what he saw on a map to what he saw on the ground. Furthermore, the high winds on the plains were always a factor in navigation, and Buck consistently misapplied wind corrections to his headings and groundspeed calculations. We spent hours on the ground trying to teach Buck how to navigate. We learned that he was not a communicator. In fact, he was soft spoken and seemed to be uncomfortable when asked to verbalize.

After six weeks, Buck was still getting lost more often than not. To compound his problems, we discovered on training flights he could not master the manual fuel emergency procedures in the H-1F, needing instructor pilot intervention on the controls on every manual fuel landing he attempted. Also, he struggled with basic instrument flying maneuvers such as holding patterns and approaches.

Major Rhineland had a meeting with Kris and I to discuss the situation. He had flown with Buck the previous day. Buck got disoriented and was unable to find two missile sites without help. After the flight, the Major had contacted Kirkland AFB to discuss how Buck had done during his six week training program with the 1550th. According to his student records, he had no reported problems with navigation, flying manual fuel landings or instrument flying. His training record indicated he was an average pilot with no glaring weaknesses.

We were amazed. How do you go from being proficient at these things to being horrible in just a couple of months? As Kris put it, “This kid couldn’t find his butt with both hands since he got here, but during pilot training at Ft Rucker and advanced training at Kirkland he could?” Did the fact that Buck’s father the renown Milt Famous influence his instructors’ decisions to fabricate his proficiency reports? The answer to this will never be known, but it was not long before squadron headquarters was bugging us about the length of time 2/Lt Famous was taking to be a full fledged pilot.

We got the word the squadron operations officer, Lt Col Harvey Misbon, planned to spend a few days with us. Misbon intended to personally fly a training mission with Buck. As luck would have it, Misbon showed up on the only no-wind day of the entire year. During the flight with Buck, Misbon told him to fly to missile site Delta. Of the 150 sites we served, Delta was the easiest site to find, because it sits at the foot of Bear Butte, a prominent hill that can be seen from the base on a clear day. Misbon brilliantly concluded that there was nothing wrong with Buck’s navigation skills and directed us to finish his upgrade training program within ten days.

Based on this visit we had no choice but to complete the training program and order the evaluation flight. I scheduled Buck for his aircraft commander upgrade checkride the next week. It was common to use an actual mission for the navigation portion of this evaluation. Buck’s mission was to deliver maintenance parts to three missile sites. To simulate an actual single pilot mission, my task was to sit in the left seat without saying a word or assisting in any way during the flight. I was pleasantly surprised when Buck managed to find the first site, but then things went downhill.

The next missile site on the mission was 100 miles to the east. I observed Buck selected the wrong heading and watched as he attempted to use terrain features to pinpoint his location. After flying for approximately 40 minutes, Buck actually thought he knew where the aircraft was located on the map. Unfortunately he had mistaken the river below us for one 35 miles to the south. By this time we should have reached site 2, but Buck continued to fly on his heading. After another ten minutes I ended the checkride before it jeopardized the support mission. I took the controls and turned the aircraft on a southwesterly heading towards site 2 and delivered the cargo.

As a flight examiner, I never took delight in failing someone on a checkride; however, I did feel it was my job to ensure pilots could perform in a safe and professional manner. In my opinion Buck could not safely perform the duties of an aircraft commander. During the debriefing, Buck looked like a hurt puppy. He acknowledged that he had gotten lost, but was seemingly unable to understand how it happened. At this point, further training did not seem to make any sense. Buck’s future was now out of our unit’s hands and in the hands of higher levels of command.

News of the checkride failure did not go well with Lt Col Misbon. In a phone conversation with our Commander, Major Rhineland, he implied that our unit and especially me were out to get 2/Lt Famous. I was irate and if the option was available, I would have resigned from the Air Force immediately. Major Rhineland calmed me down and informed me the Squadron Chief of Flight Evaluations, Major Bob Reindeer, would arrive next week to personally evaluate 2/Lt Famous.

Did Buck get lost on the checkride with Major Reindeer? None of us would ever know. The helicopter took off from the base and spent about two hours north of the base. Upon returning the helicopter flew to the training area for an emergency procedures evaluation. About twenty minutes later our flight dispatcher received a call from the airfield tower controller.

“We just got an emergency call from Bever 59 in the helicopter training area adjacent to the runway. The pilot declared a hard landing and the need for immediate assistance. Fire rescue has been dispatched.”

I’d be lying if I did not admit to some personal satisfaction from what happened to Major Reindeer. Apparently, while attempting a manual fuel approach to a landing, Buck lost control of the manual fuel switch, resulting in rapid engine and rotor speed decay. Major Reindeer must have reacted too late to avoid a hard landing. Although damage turned out to be nominal (less than $5,000), the outcome vindicated of our unit’s concerns about Buck’s flying abilities.

We were directed to discontinue Buck’s training program and use him as a copilot while the situation was evaluated in the chain of command. Buck was subjected to a series of physical and psychological tests. He was diagnosed as having a type of functional disorder that prevented him from translating what he saw on a map to what he saw outside. Eventually the squadron conceded that 2/Lt Buck Famous was un-trainable. About 14 months after reporting to our unit he was removed from flight status and transferred to a desk job.

Epilogue:

Remember this old joke?

What do you call the person who graduates last from medical school?

Doctor.

Substitute other professions and come up with a similar joke. For example, what do you call the person who graduates last in his class from the U.S Air Force Academy?

2nd Lieutenant.

Some “tail end Charlies” have achieved great notoriety, such as George Armstrong Custer, who graduated last in his class at West Point. But somehow, the thought of the last graduate from a U.S. military academy lacks the visceral feel of the thought of the last doctor in the class, especially if you are that doctor’s patient. Okay, what if one considers the aviation profession? How would Buck Famous perform compared to Sully Sullenberger, pilot of US Airways Flight 1549?

On the surface it would appear to be more difficult to graduate a crappy Air Force pilot than to graduate a crappy doctor. After all, consider all the opportunities during training for a pilot to wash out. Think of all those checkrides that cannot be passed without demonstrating a certain level of proficiency and safety. But this belief depends on the integrity of the instructor and evaluator pilots involved in the pilot training program. What if every instructor and evaluator had this philosophy: “This person’s flying sucks, but I don’t want to be the bad guy and fail him or her, especially if Dad or Mom is ‘VIP Somebody’. I’ll play it safe and pass them on to the next level.” What if you are the last pilot that stands between this person becoming a pilot or not?

Personal integrity in any field means not passing the “Buck” to the next person, but doing the right thing, however uncomfortable or unpopular. It is an axiom which should apply to everyone, particularly those in positions of authority or in public office.