The Cobra Pilot

By H. David Pendleton

Lenexa, KS

When I graduated from ROTC, the Army made me an infantry officer. I did not plan to make the Army a career, so I did not attend Airborne or Ranger School like ninety percent of my class did at Fort Benning. The Army must have known also as my first assignment after initial infantry officer training was at Fort Ord, California working at the United States Army Combat Developments Experimentation Command (USACDEC). When the Army downgraded the senior position from Brigadier General to Colonel, the command went away. The Training and Doctrine Command 9TRADOC) still called it USACDEC but the final “C” stood for “Center.”

To add insult to injury, the Army assigned me to the team that worked on aviation issues for the Army. My team was composed of about twenty personnel. The lowest enlisted rank was a Sergeant (E-5) and the highest rank was the team sergeant, a Master Sergeant. The officers ranged from a Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) team leader to two lieutenants. Most team officers were aviators.

The team Executive Officer (XO) was a major who served in Vietnam on at least two tours. This was 1981 and as a “Mustang” (Officer Candidate School graduate), he was pushing twenty years of service. Most of his peers were LTCs but our XO did not have a bachelor’s degree. In the “new” Army, a bachelor’s degree was more important than knowledge, skills, and experience.

The XO flew in Vietnam for the first time in the mid-1960s and was one of the first Cobra pilots in combat there. On his first tour, the XO told me he did not have to worry about most anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) fire as he could fly higher than the AAA weapons the Vietnam Army and Viet Cong possessed. On his second tour, the XO told me that the enemy’s AAA had become more deadly. In response, he was one of the first pilots that routinely conducted NOE (nap-of-the-earth) or low level flying. The pilots flew so low to the ground that by the time they passed by the enemy, it would be too late for the enemy to get a shot off at the Cobras.

I initially did not like the XO. He wanted details of any of my “plans.” In the Army, the senior leader usually gives the subordinate leader the five “Ws” (Who, What, When, Where, and Why). The “how” is up to the subordinate to figure out and implement. This XO wanted my “how” and all the details.

I remember one experiment we were going to conduct at Fort Hunter Liggett, California. I was to make sure that the extra personnel assigned to our team for an upcoming operational test had all the shots they needed from the Fort Ord base hospital. I explained that a deuce-and-a-half (2 1/2-ton truck) would transport the twenty personnel to the hospital to receive their shots. That was my plan or the guts of it.

The XO was not happy. He wanted to know who was driving the truck and if I had checked to see that his DD348 (Operation Qualification Record) was valid as well as how the driver was making it from the barracks to the motor pool. The XO also wanted to know what time the shots were schedule for, how many shots each Soldier was receiving, and when the “mission” would be over. He also wanted to know what my backup plan was in case the truck broke down before, during, and after, the “mission” or if the hospital ran of the vaccines. I had all those details but had not elaborated on them. As the second highest ranking officer on our team, I thought the XO’s time was precious and that he only needed to know the minimum details. I quickly learned that this XO wanted the details of any future “mission” of mine and would stop me if I was getting “too deep into the weeds.”

My opinion of the XO changed on one Saturday. All the aviators on the team had to keep up their helicopter qualifications including the XO who was now flying UH-1 Huey helicopters. The XO asked me if I wanted to go flying in a Huey on a Saturday morning as needed to complete his quarterly flight hours. Having nothing else, I agreed to meet him at the airfield on Fort Ord.

The XO, another pilot on our team, and I were the ones flying that day. As it was not a regular workday, we did not have a crew chief. The XO told me that I would serve in that capacity for our flight. The three of us made a by-the-book inspection of the UH-1 and I held the fire extinguisher as they started the helicopter in case it caught on fire. It seemed like a small fire extinguisher for such a large aircraft.

The three of us took about ninety minutes to fly south to Fort Hunter Liggett (FHL), California with the co-pilot doing the flying for his hours. We landed at the airfield there and picked up two military policemen (MPs). We then went looking for potential marijuana fields in the back training areas of the 200,000 acre military reservation that butted up against a national forest. We spotted a couple of potential marijuana fields and landed for the MPs to investigate. The fields were deserted but the locations were plotted on a map.

During this flight, the XO took over and he conducted NOE flying in the FHL riverbeds. It seemed like I could reach out and touch the trees on either side of the helicopter from my seat—the jump seat just behind the two pilots in the center of the aircraft. We even flew within a mile of the Hearst Castle near San Simeon, California. William Randolph Hearst was the original owner of what is now FHL but had to sell it to the government when income taxes began in the 1930s as he was cash-poor. There was a no-fly zone around the castle but the XO took some liberties as the co-pilot wanted some photographs of it from the air. He handed me the camera to take the photographs.

Our flight also took us to the Pinnacles National Monument (now a National Park) where the XO landed us on top of one of the pinnacles. We got out of the helicopter and looked out at a drop of at least 1,000 feet straight down. We got back in the aircraft and I put my headset back on. The XO told me to be prepared for a drop as soon as we took off. He just got enough power to get us off the pinnacle and then moved forward and the helicopter dropped a couple of hundred feet before it took off forward. The MPs with us immediately reached for their barf bags. The three of us with headsets tried to keep a straight face.

The XO dropped the MPs off at the FHL airfield and we headed back north to Fort Ord. The XO then told me over the intercom that all his crew chiefs must know how to fly. He then had me switch places with the co-pilot and had me take hold of the cyclic and the collective—the two that keep the helicopter aloft. The XO let me “fly” the helicopter for a minute before taking back control of the aircraft. Thankfully, the co-pilot and I swapped places again. The XO turned control of the helicopter to the co-pilot for the rest of the trip to Fort Ord. We did our post-operative to end an exhilarating day.

While the XO and I were “teammates”, he completed his bachelor's degree. On the next promotion board, he came out on the LTC list and left us for his next assignment. What I learned from him was important for my military career—have a plan; have a back-up plan; have all the details ready to brief your boss; but only give him//her what they need to know. The boss usually only wants to know the time but sometimes they also want to know how the watch works. Be prepared to give it to them.