The crews on our slicks learned to depend completely upon one another, they were a team. This was a process that the 119th carried through from the first flight as a "Peter Pilot" or new crewmember through the last day that you flew in country. I found that other units did not do what we did, crews were assigned to an aircraft, but the pilots were not, therefore the pilots of many of the other units never bonded with the crews the way the 119th did. I flew for the 189th one day, and the crew didnot respond to my requests for clearance. During the first time that the rotor stopped for a few minutes I got with the crew and talked to them. I told them how much our unit depended upon the communication between members of the crew. During the rest of the day they responded to my requests, and we talked over the intercom as we did in the 119th. At the end of the day, even though I grounded their aircraft and got into a dispute with their Maintenance Officer and their Command and Operations personnel, the crew responded that they had enjoyed the day and that they felt that they were a part of working team. I saw each of them a few times later during the tour and both had asked to be transfered to the 119th. They said that one day of being part of a team convinced them that they were missing something in their unit.

The assigning of an Aircraft Commander to an (aircraft / crew) is something that many units did not do. I learned early in my tour that the team was worth far more than the individual. Each position is limited in its capabilities, but as a team we learned to function well. Without the teamwork of the whole crew we would have never been able to have performed some of the "Landings" that we did, and that we were infamous for with the Special Forces and with the 4th Division LRRP teams.
Huey