Cobrapilot82 posts another superb piece of military flight lore that touches the heart of everyone who ever has struggled through that steep learning curve called "Flight School:"

Swaggering to the Flight Line

by Walter McDonald

Out of cram sessions in the bar,
we practiced crashing after midnight,
emergency steps we drilled
until we could fly blindfolded
stumbling up stairs of the barracks.
We turned unnatural acts around
in our minds, spins and loops

we would have to do perfect,
alone. Out of bachelor bunks,
out of accident reports and training films,
we swaggered to the flight line,
living on flames in the belly of jets,
five thousand pounds of thrust.
Wings and three good friends

sustained us, men we would die for,
table mates straining to take
the IP's brain and luck
and make them ours, aping his stride,
the cock of his flight cap. No coach
ever drove us like that brash
instructor pilot, almost a god,

a man with wings and battle ribbons
and touch on controls we coveted.
One by one he launched us solo
in December skies he owned, cold wind
whipping the ramp when I strapped in
and taxied out without his breath
in my headset—exciting silence,

nothing but these two fists to save me,
the runway thudding faster and faster
and falling away, the moon floating up
from Savannah, the force in my hand massive,
banking with blazing power out of traffic,
climbing through baffling darkness
into the splendor of stars.

"Swaggering to the Flight Line" by Walt McDonald, from All Occasions. © University of Notre Dame Press, 2000. Reprinted with permission

John Steinbeck on Helicopter Pilots

Cobrapilot82 contributed this bit of lore from the Vietnam War:

Only a handful of people have won both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes in literature. One of them was iconic American novelist John Steinbeck. His incredible body of work stretched from Tortilla Flat to Of Mice and Men, from Grapes of Wrath to Cannery Row to East Of Eden.  He had a gift for the language that few before or since have possessed.

 Not widely known is the fact that in 1966-67, a year before his death, he went to Vietnam at the request of his friend Harry F. Guggenheim, publisher of Newsday to do a series of reports on the war. The reports took the form of letters to his dear friend Alicia Patterson, Newsday's first editor and publisher.  Those letters have been published in a book by Thomas E. Barden, Vietnam veteran and professor of English at the University of Toledo. The book is entitled, “Steinbeck on Vietnam: Dispatches From The War.”

 I found the following passages relevant to our experience in Vietnam and his ability to weave a vision is just magical. On January 7, 1967, Steinbeck was in Pleiku, flying with Shamrock Flight, D Troop, 10th Cavalry:

“...We are to move to the Huey of Major James Patrick Thomas of whom it is said that he has changed the classic sophist's question to how many choppers could Thomas sit on the point of a pin.

 Alicia, I wish I could tell you about these pilots. They make me sick with envy. They ride their vehicles the way a man controls a fine, well-trained quarter horse. They weave along stream beds, rise like swallows to clear trees, they turn and twist and dip like swifts in the evening. I watch their hands and feet on the controls, the delicacy of the coordination reminds me of the sure and seeming slow hands of (Pablo) Casals on the cello. They are truly musicians hands and they play their controls like music and they dance them like ballerinas and they make me jealous because I want so much to do it. Remember your child night dream of perfect flight free and wonderful? It's like that, and sadly I know I never can.

My hands are too old and forgetful to take orders from the command center, which speaks of updrafts and side winds, of drift and shift, or ground fire indicated by a tiny puff or flash, or a hit and all these commands must be obeyed by the musicians hands instantly and automatically. I must take my longing out in admiration and the joy of seeing it.

Sorry about that leak of ecstasy, Alicia, but I had to get it out or burst.”

The man just had a way with words, no?

An Independence Day Post For My Fellow Vietnam Helicopter Pilots and Crewmembers - My Heroes, One And All

There was never one second during my tour in Vietnam that I doubted that any of you would have my back. Thank You and God Bless you all.

Crocodile 1 (1967)

119th Assault Helicopter Company

Pleiku RVN

Ever Dream of Flying "Freer" Than A Bird?

This video will certainly give you a sense of flying that is just not there in most videos I've seen. My impression was one of being "freer than a bird." I think you will agree.

Let's go flying like we never did before!

New Home Defense Dawg

Due to a rise of crime in the neighborhood,  I just adopted a retired military dog to protect my house.

With the recent military cuts overseas, the US government has developed a new program where citizens can apply to adopt retired military canines.  The nice part is he is a year old and already fully trained by the US Navy SEALs.

I’ve attached some photos of him below...

For your safety, UPON ARRIVING AT MY HOME please call me from the driveway and

REMAIN IN YOUR CAR!!!

Being Eaten...

How do you eat a fish that must be swallowed headfirst if you have impaled it from the side with your beak?? Watch.

CLICK HERE: Florida Anhinga eating a fish

My friend, Joe Kirkup is an accomplished photographer and he sent this animated photo sequence that he took on one of his frequent photographic safaris into the darkest Everglades of Florida.

U.S. G.I. Baby Killer dies saving Afghan girl

Joe Kirkup reports this item:

Just in case you missed this on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
    JK

U.S. soldier dies saving Afghan girl

By Larry Shaughnessy
After the news of a U.S. soldier charged with murdering Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, the story of Spc. Dennis Weichel of the Rhode Island National Guard bears telling.

The official Pentagon news release says he died "from injuries suffered in a noncombat related incident." But there is much more to the story. Weichel, 29, of Providence, died saving the life of a little girl.

According to the Rhode Island National Guard and the U.S. Army, Weichel was in a convoy a week ago with his unit in Laghman Province, in northeast Afghanistan. Some children were in the road in front of the convoy, and Weichel and other troops got out to move them out of the way.

Most of the children moved, but one little girl went back to pick up some brass shell casings in the road. Afghan civilians often recycle the casings, and the girl appeared to aim to do that. But a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle was moving toward her, according to Lt. Col. Denis Riel of the Rhode Island National Guard.

MRAPs, as they are known, usually weigh more than 16 tons.

Weichel saw the massive truck bearing down on the girl and grabbed her out of the way. But in the process, the armored truck ran him over, Riel said.

The little girl is fine. Weichel died a short time later of his injuries.

"He was a big kid at heart. He always had a smile on his face, and he made everyone laugh," 1st Sgt. Nicky Peppe, who served with Weichel in Iraq, is quoted as saying in an Army story.

"But as much as Weichel was funny, he was also a professional. When it was time to go outside the wire for a combat patrol, he was all business."

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has ordered flags in the state lowered to half-staff until Weichel, who was posthumously promoted to sergeant, is laid to rest Monday.

Weichel is survived by his parents, his fiancee and three children. His family will be awarded a Bronze Star and other awards for his sacrifice.

The helicopter corps of the future?

Did you read Michael Crichton's Prey?

(Prey is a novel by Michael Crichton based on a nano-robotic threat to human-kind)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)

This might be a step along the way....I guess. At least it is of interest to an old helicopter pilot. Maybe you'll find it interesting too...if not a touch eerie.

Click Here: Flying Robotic Swarms

Thanks to Mark T. for pointing us to this.

Just For Fun 

If you've ever cooked LIVE crabs, you'll appreciate this lady as she tries to do it with no prior instruction and no idea what she's in for.

Click here: Cooking Crabs For The First Time

How I GOT to Army Flight School

One of the questions from the career placement test given applicants for a Military Commission was important. It went:

"Rearrange the letters P N E S I to spell out an important part of human body that is more useful when erect."

All those who spelled SPINE became Doctors...the rest of us went to FlightSchool.