Stage Fields, Confined Areas, Pinnacle Approaches

After solo, we began to fine tune things a bit and started the last part of our training before we went to Ft. Rucker. We actually had a course called "Pinnacle Approaches and Confined Areas". I liked that phase of training as it allowed us to land on top of hills that were cleared on the top to simulate landing areas on top of the mountains in Vietnam. In each of those areas there were old automobile tires that were carefully laid out to form a boundary line that would keep our tail rotors out of the trees. I knew that it was important because there was a large number of those areas throughout the practice areas.

We began to look at the stage fields a bit differently than we did at the beginning of our training. Some of the fields such as "Sundance" and "Ramrod" seemed to be pretty much status quo. Others began to take on a different meaning. To name a few, there were several that I flew out of that actually ended up being places I would fly to in Vietnam.

Phu Loi, Vung Tau, Tay Ninh and Ben Hoa were some of the names but there were many more. The focus was always on flying and developing a "touch" for very precise maneuvering but more and more stories about the Vietnamese student started to surface.

One day, Mr. Chapman told me a story about one Vietnamese student that had given them a lot of trouble. As I had mentioned earlier, Mr. Chapman was very specific in his expectations regarding emergency procedures. Auto rotations were at the top of his list. It didn't matter to him if we were flying at 1500' or at a 3' hover, he would pull the power in a heart beat and you had better be ready for it when he did.

He and I had spent alot of time flying together and over that span of experiences, we became very comfortable flying with each other. One day as we were returning to the Main Heliport, I mentioned how beautiful the day was and how pretty the lake looked on that day. When I mentioned the lake, he began to tell a story about a Vietnamese student pilot.

Every time he would chop the throttle on this student, he would say: "What are you going to do now?". That was a common statement but in this students case, a case where he needed lots of work on outstations, he had a surprise answer.

As soon as Chapman chopped the throttle and said "What are you going to do now, the Vietnamese student reached over to the instrument panel where the mags were and turned both of them off, totally killing the engine. As he did that, he said: "What are YOU gonna do now?"

I can't remember if radio traffic interrupted our conversation but for some reason, that conversation ended and we never spoke of it again. It was clear to me that Chapman did not like the Vietnamese students and would much rather teach an American student who spoke his kind of language.

Now that we had all soloed and the pressure of that was finished, Mr. Diable started to kick the inspection schedule into high gear. We'd already reached his expectations as it related to getting all of his kids soloed and now he wanted us to be the most squared away Flight in the 5th WOC.  It was a good thing that he did because we were now beginning to see Battalion sized inspections where the entire school would march in review of the Base Commander.

I think my punishment tour of marching his Flight around the parking lot and then into the barracks and shower stalls, resulted in me being picked as the Candidate Company Executive Officer and the student who was chosen to command during those marches. I would direct the students as needed to march in a most military manner while we were marching to the inspection field. I was also expected to "call cadence". For those of you who don't have military experience, the cadence caller would chant as the men marched. It went something like this:

Me: " I don't know but I've been told
Men:" I don't know but I've been told
Me: " 5th Woc men are mighty bold
Men:" 5th Woc men are mighty bold
Me: "Sound off"
Men: "One, two"
Me: Sound off"
Men: Three, Four"
Me: "Say it again"
Men: One, two , three,  four, one two, three four.

It's just like in the movies..