Too Quiet Part 1 "Ask Me No Questions"

Ceiling Hassan II Mosque Casablanca - photo by JoAnn Sturman

By Steven R Oberst

“Autorotation is the state of flight where the main rotor system of a helicopter is being turned by the action of air moving up through the rotor rather than engine power driving the rotor.” --Wikipedia

Don’t be fooled by this simple definition. This “state of flight” cannot be sustained indefinitely, so powered flight, although less exciting, is preferable. However, in case the engine quits, it is desirable that the pilot have the ability to execute an autorotation to a safe landing (one that everyone walks away from). Autorotations were my favorite thing to do in a helicopter. Flying helicopters is fun, but doing autorotations is over-the-top fun. To me, entering an autorotation was like starting down the first big descent on a roller coaster ride, only unlike the coaster car, which hopefully stays on the tracks, helicopters have considerable maneuverability while in autorotation. Practicing autorotations is entertaining, but there is added adrenaline when you do one for real. Plus, in a Huey, the turbine engines are quite noisy, so when the engine quits the sudden quiet really gets your attention.

When I was learning to fly helicopters with the U.S. Army, it was the belief of many Army aviators that pilots would experience an engine failure every for every 1,000 hours of flight time. I never heard a similar axiom among Air Force helicopter pilots, so I surmised that maybe this was more of an indictment of Army maintenance than it was factual. However, ten years and 3,000 hours in single engine helicopters later, I had indeed experienced 3 engine failures.

First Failure: Ask Me No Questions…

In the early 1970s Air Force helicopter pilots graduating from the Army program at Ft Rucker, AL were sent to the 1550th Aircrew Training and Test Wing at Hill AFB, UT to learn the Air Force approach to helicopter flying. Think of it as a “re-blue-ing”. The duration of the training depended on the type of helicopter you would be flying at your next assignment, so for an H-1F Huey pilot, the program was six weeks long. Much of the time was dedicated to search and rescue training, but there was also time spent on emergency procedures. This was to ensure you learned how to perform these procedures the Air Force way. For example, the Army performed autorotations to the ground with the engine at idle. The Air Force used a power recovery method that resulted in power being reapplied near the end of the autorotation with the maneuver ending in a hover instead of on the ground. Near the end of my six week training program at Hill I was scheduled to fly on an emergency procedures training mission. I had not previously flown with the instructor for this flight, Captain Mack Jackson, or the other student, Captain Vince Baggit.

Mack was a better looking version of Robert Redford. He carried himself with a swagger that set him apart from the other instructors. Vince on the other hand had the look of someone who was perpetually bored. He had been flying a desk for five years. I had met both of them a few weeks earlier when a group of pilots gathered at the Hill Officers Club for the Wing Commander’s promotion party. Vince quickly let me know he felt that being in the six week training program was a waste of his time because he already knew how to fly search and rescue. Meanwhile I watched in awe as woman after woman literally threw herself at Mack during the evening.

We took off from Hill AFB on a summer afternoon and flew a short distance to the Ogden Municipal Airport to practice the emergency procedures. Vince was flying and I was sitting in the jump seat. Half way through the flight we would switch places. I noticed how relaxed Mack was. So much so that he even put his feet up on the dash while Vince was flying. Vince was not a particularly good pilot, and his performance on the emergency procedures was underwhelming, but Mack never said a word. This is cool I thought, an instructor who is so laid back, he just lets you fly.

When it was my turn to fly, I did several autorotations with no problems. Then I did a manual fuel approach to a slide landing, which was kind of a tricky maneuver in this particular Huey; however, Mack was so relaxed he had his feet up on the dash until just before I landed. A glance at Vince revealed that he was sound asleep in the jump seat. Our next practice emergency procedure was a hydraulics off approach and landing. Once the aircraft was established on the downwind leg of its traffic pattern, the standard procedure was for the instructor to identify the hydraulic switch located at the top of the pedestal between the pilots. Following an acknowledgement from the student pilot, the instructor would turn the switch off.

When I had turned the aircraft downwind, Mack, with his feet on the dash, merely said “Ready?” Before I could respond he reached over to the middle of the pedestal and turned off the main fuel switch. Within a couple of seconds the engine flamed out and it got quiet. All I could hear in that first moment in time was the swishing sound of the rotor blades. Then red cockpit warning lights started flashing and a warning horn started screeching, indicating the engine had failed. I found myself lowering the collective (power control), entering an autorotation, calling “Mayday” over the radio, and looking for a place to land. All I could see on my side of the helicopter were trees and the Ogden River. Finally Mack came to life. He got on the controls with me, but did not take them away from me. I said “Do you see a place to land?” Then he said “I’ve got the controls.” He entered a steep turn to the left towards Interstate 84. By some dumb luck or due to a higher authority’s intervention, there in front of us was an open grassy area inside an off-ramp cloverleaf. Mack dodged the light poles surrounding it and made a perfect power off, autorotation landing in the middle of the cloverleaf. We barely felt the touchdown.
I could not believe what had just happened in less than a minute. This idiot instructor had tried to kill us by turning off the fuel instead of the hydraulic switch, but had then redeemed himself by doing a perfect autorotation to the cloverleaf. Should I punch the guy or hug him? I did neither.

Mack calmly reported on the radio to the tower that we just had an engine failure, but had landed safely, giving them our location. A maintenance team was dispatched from Hill AFB along with a van to take us back to the base. The aircraft was thoroughly inspected. It was no surprise to me when maintenance could not find anything wrong. Another pilot was brought to the site the next morning. The aircraft engine was started and after determining that everything was operating normally, the pilot flew the helicopter back to the base. I was told by another instructor that the incident would be investigated.

I dreaded being interviewed about the incident because I was not going to lie about what happened, and I knew this would not be good for Mack’s career. I was only ten days from being done at Hill and moving on to my first flying assignment. To my surprise, no one ever asked to interview me or ask me any questions about the incident. Vince, who was asleep when the incident happened, was certain that the engine just flamed out on its own, which is exactly what he told me he said to the Major conducting the investigation. I guess the Major felt he did not need to bother with interviewing a mere second lieutenant. So, I never told anyone that Mack had turned off the main fuel switch and caused the engine to flame out.

The next month I saw Mack’s smiling face in the MAC Flyer (a monthly safety magazine published by the Military Airlift Command, forerunner to today’s Air Mobility Command). There on the page giving kudos to crews executing successful emergency landings was a short article about Mack’s successful autorotation to an Interstate cloverleaf following an engine failure (cause unknown).

Next Week: Part II of Too Quiet: "Your Other Left"

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.