Word: copters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...allied side, the Air Force has also found a new use for an even older weapon-the 15,000-lb. conventional iron bombs of World War II vintage. They are being parachuted from C-130 transports in Viet Nam and Laos to create "instant copter pads." The same task is being performed by an ultramodern weapon called a "fuel air bomb," which weighs up to 1½ tons. Dropped by parachute, it relies on the detonation of propane gas and air to create intense heat and shock waves, which effectively clear small landing areas...
...Copter pilots, usually men aged 25 and younger, take 32 weeks of flight training, arriving in Viet Nam with at least 210 hours of flying time. Often they fly "pigs-and-rice" or "ash-and-trash" missions-supplying outposts, moving men, carrying mail. "But you do fly six hours a day, rarely over 3,000 feet, and over very wild country," says an Army colonel who did two hitches as a pilot in Viet Nam. "Everything is a challenge...
Finally came the moment for which the caravan had gathered. Flying low over the Nile, four Soviet-built helicopters landed beside a palace on Gezira Island, the original headquarters of Nasser's Revolutionary Command Council. From the lead copter, a flag-draped coffin was unloaded and strapped to a gun carriage pulled by six black horses. A funeral cortege formed, with a troop of lance-bearing cavalrymen leading the way. Six military bands, the morning sun glinting richly off their brass, struck up the melancholy strains of Chopin's Funeral March. Twenty-seven visiting chiefs of state, eleven Prime Ministers...