Flight,

Today I posted a letter dated January 25, 1967 and in that post I described an incident where we were stuck in an LZ with a damaged Tail Rotor. Well there is more to the story than I wrote home about and in some ways it is comical.

I am now going to fill in the blanks as I recall them:

To say that the Landing Zone (term used loosely) was small is an understatement. We had plenty of Main Rotor Clearance but very little area to put the skids. Our final resting point left the Tail of the ship hanging over the edge of the hill and the rear portion of the skids with no ground under them. I needed a boost up from my Gunner just to get up on the Stinger and then the rest of the ship started to lean back due to my added weight. At the time I was about 160 Lbs, wet. My solution was to have the AC, Mr. Dobbs and the Peter Pilot our own Mr. Daniel, sit in the front of the ship to stabilize it while I inspected the damage. The shooting has not started yet. After a careful inspection of the Tail Rotor, the Gear Box and the Drive shaft I decided we could not fly in this condition. That is when I asked for a replacement Tail Rotor just to get us out of there. A Hook would have had trouble with the surrounding trees.

In addition to this I knew it was not a good idea to take anything apart until I had a replacement just in case things got shity ( spell check doesn’t like the word shity). Another Tail Rotor was flown out to our location and lowered on a rope along with a Torque Wrench and buy this time I was getting some hints that the AC and PP were not happy about about being the counter weight. My solution, stack empty marmite cans under the Tail Boom for needed support while Crew Chief stands on Stinger holding on with one arm while replacing Tail Rotor with the other. That is when the shooting started, I don’t remember jumping from my perch but I must have and my next move was in the ship behind my 60 firing into the jungle. Things calmed down before one of our Crocs arrived on the scene and I was able to finish the job.

Now, as all of us know, it is a long-standing custom that when either Pilot drags the Stinger he owes the crew a case of beer. When I brought the subject up it was met with verbal abuse and aggression. I still think to this day that Dobbs was one of if not the best pilot in the 119th in 66 & 67, but we never did get that case of beer and I know we never will and it still pisses me off.

Tom Gator 851.