Chapter 2 The Set Up

Burro in Morocco - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by S.R. Oberst

The next few months went by quickly. I was flying about 100 hours a month and getting great training from the senior pilots. Fortunately, Captain Charlie Crown avoided flying as much as possible, logging maybe 8 to 12 hours a month. Flying with him was another form of Hell, for he thought he was the greatest pilot on earth and would frequently expound on his heroic flying exploits in Vietnam. He would impart aviation pearls to any listener and describe them as – “tricks I learned in Nam”. One such gem was to adjust the pilot’s seat as far forward as it would go. One of the first times I flew with Charlie I felt the cyclic, the primary flight control of a helicopter which is attached to the floor of the cockpit between the pilot’s legs, as it hit him in the chest while I was pulling it toward me during a modest flare during an approach to landing. This really screwed up the approach, and I had to overfly the helipad. Charlie quickly berated my flying skills, but from then on, if I got stuck flying with him, I planned approaches knowing full well his huge gut would be too close to the cyclic.

Let’s pause again for some Un-Leadership insight: Most Un-Leaders are not really very good at their chosen profession. They tend to look down their noses at training or learning more about their job. However, they generally claim to be very good at what they do. Charlie’s confidence in his flying abilities knew no bounds. He never went on training flights except to get in his minimum flight requirements. Un-Leaders believe they can intimidate their way through every situation.

Every six months the squadron check pilot from headquarters flew to our base and gave the operations officer and commander a check ride. The squadron check pilot, Captain Bill Pansy, must have given them the easiest evaluation flights possible, because neither could fly very well, yet both passed every time.

It was October before I got to leave the local flying area on a cross-country flight of nearly three hours to our squadron headquarters. I was co-pilot for the trip, and Captain Dave Evalman was the pilot. Dave was our detachment’s Chief of Flight Evaluations and had to report to headquarters to get his checkride with the squadron’s Chief of Flight Evaluations, Captain Sebastian K. Reamer, otherwise known as “Skinny Kid” or “SK” for short. I was assigned to be Dave’s co-pilot, and SK would sit in the jump seat between us and evaluate both of us.

SK was infamous in the squadron for giving incredibly difficult checkrides. Few pilots ever passed their first check flight with SK. There were ten detachments in the squadron, and I’ll bet every one of them had one or more pilots that SK had failed. Dave was not one of them. He was so good, that even SK admired him. After a grueling 2.5 hour checkride, SK was so impressed by our performance that he invited us to join him for a couple of beers at the end of the day. I knew Dave was a great pilot and a good guy, but that night I witnessed his diabolical side.

As they chatted over beers and as a 2nd Lieutenant I dutifully listened, SK complimented Dave on his piloting skills and stated it had been a pleasure to evaluate us. Dave politely accepted the compliment and responded, “Thanks, SK, but if you want to see a really top notch pilot, you should fly with Charlie Crown. He is an amazing pilot who has done it all. I am not even in the same league with him.”

I quickly realized what Dave was up to and somehow managed to not choke on my beer. SK was intrigued. Dave then proceeded to describe Charlie as the helicopter equivalent of Chuck Yeager. SK was hooked. The next morning, as we prepared for departure, we saw SK standing in front of his pilot evaluation scheduling board. “Look!” he said, “Your detachment commander and ops officer have check rides due next month. Captain Pansy has been up to your unit the last couple of times. I’ll come up this time.”

Dave merely shrugged an okay, and we calmly walked to our chopper and took off for home. Once in flight, Dave looked over at me with the biggest grin possible and said, “Oh my, what did I just stir up?”

Charlie - the Un-leader Prologue

Penguins Peninsula Valdez, Argentina - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by Steven R. Oberst

It was my first day at my first flying assignment. So what if it’s a northern tier Air Force base? From the parking lot I can see 6 H-1 helicopters gleaming in the sunlight on this hot July day. Imagine my surprise when the first word I hear as I enter the flight ops building of the rescue detachment is “Dummy!” Delivering this one word rebuke is barrel-chested older guy in a flight suit. The recipient is 2nd Lt Bruce Cameron, who also happened to be an Air Force Academy classmate of mine. Bruce was sitting behind the ops counter. As I walked up towards them, the amazingly rotund flight suit turns in my direction and says “Who the hell are you?” Before I could speak, he answers his own question, “Oh no it’s another damned 2nd lieutenant.” Then Bruce says “Hi, Steve, good to see...but the flight suit cuts him off, “You two know each other? Don’t tell me we got another zoomie. Just what I need, another dummy around here.”

And so went my inglorious introduction to Captain Charles “Charlie” Crown, Detachment Operations Officer. This was the beginning of an association that would last for 2 1⁄2 years, a period of time forever etched in my memory. During this relatively short part of my life I would experience more “no shit there I was” moments, handle more stress, and have more fun than the rest of my flying career combined, or for that matter the rest of my career.

Un-Leadership: Most successful people will tell you that one or more leaders they encountered during their careers had a positive impact on their lives. I call these people “Life-altering Leaders” – People in your life who contributed in a very positive way to the person you are today. But what about the people we encounter who we would never want to emulate? You know, the lousy boss or superior officer who made your life hell. Well, I think of these people as “Un-leaders” - People in your life who provided you with negative lessons that helped make you the person you are today.

Charlie Crown was not the first “Un-leader” I had encountered in my life, and he certainly would not be the last. But, he was by far the ultimate Un-leader I have ever known. He undoubtedly honed his un-leadership skills as a kid. I suspect he was the school bully and loved to intimidate smaller kids out of their lunch money and/or their sense of well-being. During the time I knew him, Charlie tried to intimidate everyone he encountered, from the one stripe airman to the two star general. He used everything at his disposal to give himself the edge he needed to make the intimidation work to his advantage. His edge with the twelve pilots in the detachment was that he wrote our annual officer efficiency reports (OERs). But instead of getting us to blindly follow his un-leadership, we devised ingenious strategies for getting Charlie the notoriety he deserved.

A military handbook on leadership would likely describe Charlie’s leadership style as authoritarian or autocratic. Charlie never embraced General John M. Schofield’s concept of discipline, because he regularly practiced harsh and tyrannical treatment. (General Schofield is remembered for a lengthy quotation on discipline that all cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy are required to memorize. It is an excerpt from his graduation address to the class of 1879 at West Point.) However, rather than destroy “an army”, our unit actually flourished. All of the pilots under Charlie’s command shared a common goal: We hated Charlie’s guts and felt it our divine calling to save the Air Force from ever experiencing a “Major” Crown. We also found that humor and laughter were sure cures for whatever Charlie threw at us. The twelve of us would gather on a regular basis at the club and share our recent “Charlie” experiences. Some of the stories were so outrageous that we would laugh until it hurt. I kept track of the incidents we witnessed. Hopefully you’ll find some humor in our experiences and perhaps some ideas on how not to lead people.