one charter flight from Minneapolis in the DC-3 the Captain decided he was going to screw the Flight attendant (I’m sure she also decided that would be OK). This was also Ok with me- she was a little long in the tooth for me anyway. The problem was, if you can call it a problem, was that I had been flying for North Central for only a few months, and the Captain didn’t know me, this was my first flight with him. It was snowing like hell. We were returning empty from dropping off a High School basketball team. It was my leg, the captain had flown the team home.
I remember that the FA came up to us saying that the “boys were making too much dammed noise and drinking beer and could we do something about it.” The Captain slowly climbed the old bird up to 11,000’ and most of the kids, the ones who had been drinking the most and making the most noise, went nicely to sleep… The FA was immensely pleased and whispered sweet things in the captain’s ear.
After dropping the kids, we were flying home at eight thousand feet and maybe fifty miles west of Chicago heading back to Minneapolis’s into the teeth of a heavy snow storm. The DC-3 will carry an impressive load of ice but, thankfully, it was too cold for ice and the wing lights showed no buildup on the boots. The props were deiced by an electric pump slinging alcohol on the blades from a twenty gallon tank- so far we hadn’t had to do this.
The Capt left his seat, patted me on the shoulder and said “OK, you’ve got it.” I did, but how did he know that? The DC-3 has no auto-pilot so it has to be hand flown. The instruments were the standard WW II ancient stuff that had been around for thirty plus years. The artificial horizon was just a black circle with a set of white bars connected to a vacuum powered gyro that showed you the position of the ships wings relative to the earth below. The pilot, to fly the DC-3 by hand in a raging snowstorm, had to be a damm good instrument pilot, one who could concentrate on the altitude, attitude, direction and airspeed while navigating at the same time. This night that was me. I also had to communicate with ATC, check the wings for ice and keep the carburetor heat adjusted, the props de-iced and keep the dammed gasoline fed janitrol cabin heater working. This was, to say the least, a handful and ten times the workload of the average 747-400 pilot, who occasionally watches the instruments as the autopilot flies the aircraft and navigates itself through clear skies. ( there’s almost no weather at forty thousand feet)
After an hour or so, the captain strolled forward, tucking his shirt in and zipping up his fly, and sitting down, said, where are we……? The snow storm was behind us, the skies were clear, and we were maybe an hour from home……. He was happy guy……
I flew for about a year for North Central. Things had been getting hot in Vietnam and South East Asia and in 1966 I wasn’t surprised when the Navy sent me a telegram requesting my illustrious pretense to kill some Asian strangers. I was surprised that they found me- I certainly never told them where I was. How do they do that?
I was definitely even more surprised when I got a call the next day from a guy in Washington, H.H. Dawson, asking me if I would like to fly for a government organization that wasn’t supposed to exist. This sounded like more fun than the Navy and they said that they could get me off the Navy hook. Ensign Benson, one of my Navy classmates, had called me to say that the recall wasn’t good. According to Eddie, we weren’t much use to the Navy not being “ring knockers.” All they thought we might be good for was what they called the “brown water navy” which meant driving forty foot fiberglass boats up and down nasty brown rivers, waiting for some zipper-head to open up on us. Benson, by this time, had two kids and was selling stock in Philadelphia- He was desperate to stay out of Vietnam.
CHAPTER 6
Vietnam, My first war
“No, son - you're not up there alone - not with all the things you come through. You have the greatest co-pilot in the world even if there is just room for one in that fighter ship - no, you're not alone”.
- Colonel Robert L. Scott, Jr., USAAF, 'God Is My Copilot,' 1943
What choice did I have- fly for Air America or get my ass shot off in a plastic boat? I was elated, out of the freezer for warmer climes and no military crap to deal with. I never liked the military and wasn’t much for taking orders except for my own. So, this civilian deal was great. In fact, when I was interviewed and tested to become a NROTC recruit, the Officer, a Marine Colonel named Gentleman, told me that it was too bad I wasn’t a Jap. “Yes sir, and why is that sir? “Because young, man, the Jap navy had the perfect place for you.” “Sir,” I said? “Well son, according to your personality evaluations and test scores you would be the perfect candidate for a one man submarine.” That was that, I guess he found out that I didn’t play well with others. He was right.
After the phone conversation with the guys in Washington, the very next day I flew to DC, meeting with a Guy named Barbie and his boss, H. H. Dawson. Dawson, a four pack a day man, had a voice like a mechanical grating machine. Years Later, he died from throat cancer. The Feds don’t mess around. Three days later I was in Taiwan for a six week school followed by Bangkok for another school followed by a training program in Jungle survival and other esoteric things… like the big black pill we found in our survival vests. The instructor said that we shouldn’t mistake this for a gum ball… he had only one hand and had crash landed in some God forsaken place and survived for weeks on monkey tails and such.. We listened to him, I can tell you.
After all this ground school, we moved into the flight training. The first plane that I flew for Air America was the Pilatus Porter. The Porter was a “one trick aircraft.” It could take off and land in an amazingly short distance. I did everything I could to stay away from it. The Porter has only a single engine. So, what’s wrong with that, you might ask? Well, for one thing, it’s built by the French and for another, the yella-fellas on the ground in black PJ’s weren’t very nice. In fact, they were down right hostile .One of our planes had been shot down shortly before I got there, the crew was skinned alive, gasoline was poured on their raw bodies and they were tied across the hot aluminum wing and left to die a really painful death. No one talked about this but we all knew about it.
The Porter, with its highly unreliable Turbomeca French engine, was to be avoided at all costs. I however, as fate would have it, was not lucky enough to stay away from this tremendously ugly aircraft and found myself in ground school in Bangkok and soon thereafter, in flight training.
The days in Taiwan were fun and have remained pleasantly in my memory. In Taipei, we had uniforms made by a local Taylor, Peter Woo, whose shop was across from the President Hotel where we stayed for several weeks. One of the guys, L.J. Broussard, a Cagin from Louisiana said to the tailor “Missa Woo, ah really lik China- cuz all you guys a’ smaller than ah am.” While telling Mr. Woo this, he was laughing and poking his middle finger while holding a big cigar, into Mr. Woo’s skinny chest to emphasize the point. “Woo, listin, ah wants red silk liners understand, an ah’ pay more now you heah- heah’s an extra fifty bucks now do it all nice now, heah? “ - all the while with more finger poking. The little Tailor most certainly did “Heah” but obviously didn’t like this brash American and didn’t deliver the Cajun’s uniforms until we were on the bus heading to the airport.
When we got to the hotel in Bangkok, LJ ran upstairs, saying- “Robbit, pleas jus bring up m’bags- ah gotta try on m’uniforms, heah?” Sure, I said and gathered our luggage while the Cajun ran up the stairs holding the box with his uniforms. When I go to the top of the stairs I could hear this screaming coming from the open door down the hall. “Gawddam, Gawdamm that damm Chinaman, Gawdammit.” there was this bizarre shadow dancing on the opposite wall from the open door- a kind of flashing that was somewhat in tempo with the “hellayshus” cursing and bellowing emanating from the room.
