Cross Country and Killin' Turkeys

After we finished with the solo part of our training, we went on to many other aspects of Primary. One was cross country trips where our navigation skills were to be tested. The trip chosen was Ft. Wolters to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and back. We dug out our VFR enroute charts (Visual Flight Rules)and plugged in our weather information regarding winds aloft. When I say "plugged in" I don't mean anything relative to an electrical appliance tht we could use to navigate with. It was a hand held device that would fit in your pocket and allowed us to calculate headings that would adjust for wind drift. It's really much more than that but for you non rated readers out there, I just wanted to explain that we didn't have any modern equipment in the trainers except for a radio to communicate with and another radio that would tune in an AM station and point the way to that station. That was it. In any event, we produced our flight plans which included magnetic course corrected for wind drift, land marks, estimated fuel consumption, fuel remaining at destination and estimated time of arrival at Ft. Sill. We were really excited about it because we hadn't be able to do anything after solo except pinnacle approaches, confined areas and the more tedious work of precision flight such as autorotations and other emergency procedures. Needless to say, when the day came for take off, everybody in the flight was literally on Cloud 9. Given a safety briefing, we headed for the flight line and the usual preflight, pre take off check lists and take off. Once we were heading away from Ft. Wolters, we really began to think of ourselves as pilots. Checking the enroute charts and making sure that we hit each land mark at the exact time estimated, we became more and more confident. That was a mistake. There were many safety regulations in place with procedures mandating what we were to do if we encountered any problems enroute. Right now, I can't remember if Shepard Air Force Base was before or after Bowie, Texas but I remembered the excitement many of us had in anticipation of flying past the boys with the jets. In the middle of a somewhat comforting cruise mode, all of a sudden it happened. I lost my rotor tachometer. This wasn't as bad as it sounded as the engine tachometer was slaved to the rotor tach and we could insure that the rotor RPM was in the green if the engine RPM was in the green. Despite that, a landing was mandatory. I don't remember what kind of helicopter was being used as a maintenance chase ship but the Flight Commander and the mechanic were both flying in that ship. After a brief exchange of radio transmissions, I was given instructions to make a precautionary landing at the airstrip in Bowie, Texas which I already had lined up on my VFR chart. Shortly thereafter, I made a radio call "in the clear" that simply announced "Attention all aircraft in the vicinity of Bowie, Texas, Army Helicopter 1234 will be landing north in 3 minutes". We have to announce ourselves that way when there is no control tower to monitor take offs and landings. Feeling pretty safe with my autorotational skills and the engine tach purring like a kitten, I began a long approach to the field at Bowie. When I came to within a mile or so, I notice a large area adjacent to the only runway I could see, that contained something in it that was black. As I began to make my short final approach, the entire black mass started moving. It was then that I began to see the huge fence around the property and that the large black mass was a million turkeys strutting away from the field at high speed. Being from Louisiana, one of the larger chicken producing States, I'd never seen a Turkey farm and just figured that they would be raised in houses just like chickens. That wasn't the case in Texas where everything is done on a large scale. Despite the stampede and the somewhat irate farmer who was headed toward the air strip, I made my landing as did the chase ship. When he crossed the strip to where we were parked, the Flight Commander met him and took care of all the communications. He only raised his voice in the beginning of the conversation and I don't know what the Commander's comment was but I know that he became very quiet after they met. The rotor tach problem was repaired in no time and we were given orders to catch up to the main flight and make it to Ft. Sill. We took off and luckily, had no other problems enroute. We landed at Ft. Sill and witnessed some really huge artillery pieces being moved into position for a firing exercise. Given instructions for the proper method of departure, we refilled, ate a sandwich and took off for the return trip to Ft. Wolters. Except for fighting the urge to go to sleep, we made it back with no problems. This may seem very short as some of my postings become quite lengthy but I'm pretty well knocked out with the new medication change that came with my blood test failure and I'm having a little trouble concentrating. No spell check today. Will try to do better tomorrow or Saturday.