Word: choppered
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Walters dipped the Cobra's nose and rolled out to the northwest. A set of scrambled alphabet letters came in over the T.O.C. radio, and Hayden pulled out his "Whiz Wheel" decoder to decipher the grid coordinates of his mission. As their chopper raced over the bomb-pocked Laotian countryside, a second Cobra pulled up alongside. Twenty minutes later, the Cobras arrived over a scene of total chaos. As Hayden and Walters carved circles in the sky several thousand feet above the fire-scarred hilltop, they watched errant rockets from choppers already on the scene blazing into friendly...
First stop for would-be chopper pilots is sere Fort Wolters, Texas, where they spend 16 weeks learning to handle light training helicopters. Then come 16 weeks of more advanced work at Fort Rucker, Ala. For the first eight weeks, Rucker students fly only under hoods, learning to maneuver their prized Hueys on instruments alone...
...Chopper pilots earn every penny they get. In one company at Khe Sanh called the Lancers, the pilots have organized a pool; the pot-$5 from each aircraft commander-goes to the ship with the greatest accumulation of bullet holes when Lam Son finally ends (choppers that crash are disqualified). Says soft-spoken Huey Pilot John Oldham. 22, of Peculiar, Mo.: "If you think about getting killed, it will screw you up. You just do the job you are trained for." Over Laos, where the elaborate Communist antiaircraft system is especially potent, the pilots fly high-but not on grass...
Despite such kinks, U.S. commanders are convinced that their new brand of airmobile warfare is a success. In fact, there is some concern among the brass that "the other side" is all too appreciative of the chopper's virtues. Soviet pilots, they note, have been flying Russian helicopters, including rocket-firing gunships, in support of the little-noticed guerrilla struggle in the Sudan (TIME, March 1). When the allies went into Cambodia last spring, Hanoi's General Vo Nguyen Giap himself hastened to one of Cambodia's eastern provinces for a look-see. His means of transportation...
Reading Disability. Sully's death underscored the danger of flying in VNAF helicopters. Though General Tri had a South Vietnamese pilot for his fatal flight, most other Vietnamese generals now travel in U.S. Army choppers, fearful that VNAF pilots may lose their way. Fortnight ago a VNAF helicopter carrying U.S. newsmen got temporarily but totally lost over unfamiliar terrain in South Viet Nam. In another case, a VNAF pilot casually chalked map coordinates to his destination on the outside of his chopper windshield, only to find himself forced to try to read them backwards from the inside...