Steep Dive - Jan 1969
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When I first arrived at D Troop Jan 69), I was assigned a bed in Hootch Six. Hootch Six was one of the six Officer/Warrant Officer hootches in the troop, and the only one that was almost completely open bay, i.e., sleeping areas not separated or if they were, only separated by a low wood wall. Other hootches were fancier, where the occupants had actually built individual rooms and had air conditioners for their rooms, a stereo system, bar, etc.
When I moved into Hootch Six, most of the occupants were Scout pilots. There was a friendly rivalry between the Scout Pilots and the Cobra Pilots, each claiming they had the more difficult/dangerous mission, Cobra pilots were wimps, Scout pilots couldn’t fly, etc. I took my fair share of abuse as a FNG.
In about April/May 69, I had recently returned from Cobra Instructor Pilot (IP) school and was now the unit IP. As the IP, I had a certain amount of leeway about flying, and who I flew with. If a VIP came to the unit and was offered a Cobra ride, it was either myself or the Cobra Platoon Leader (CPT Bill Malinovsky) that gave them their ride. He and I occasionally stretched the limits of VIP and who we would give rides – under the guise of doing a maintenance test flight.
On the day in question, Bill said he was taking a Cobra up on a test flight (wink, wink), and could use a wingman. One of my Scout Pilot buddies (I believe it was Tom Grossi), was hanging around the hootch, so I asked him if he would like to go for a Cobra ride, so he could see what “real” pilots did. He said sure, if he could ride in the back seat (primary pilot station). Being as I was authorized (as an IP) to be the command pilot from either seat, I said why not. We went out and preflighted and started the Cobra. I got into the front seat, and called Bill and said we were ready to go.
Bill was running and ready to head out with his VIP passenger – a nurse from the hospital (remember the wink, wink). We headed out to the swamp area just southwest of Cu Chi and climbed to around 2500-3000 feet. I let Tom fly the Cobra so he could get a feel for it, making a couple of turns, etc.
Bill asked me if I could show his “VIP” what a Cobra looks like in a dive. I said sure – and I took the controls from Tom and told him we were going to demonstrate a steep dive. I remember the first ride I had in a Cobra back in flight school, when the instructor showed me my first dive – keep in mind that at that time, the only helicopter capable of diving flight was the Cobra, so I had never seen a dive. The dive my instructor showed me was a fairly mild dive of about 35-40 degrees – and it scared the crap out of me.
The Cobra is technically capable of doing 90-degree dives, although rarely did we do that. But remember the “friendly rivalry” mentioned above – I decided that I would show Tom what a steep dive really looked like. I set the aircraft up and rolled into a fairly steep dive – maybe steeper that I intended, as we were probably pretty close to the 90-degree limit. When you dive a Cobra, the speed builds up very quickly, the steeper the dive, the faster the speed builds up. And you need to anticipate your pullout so you don’t exceed the aircraft not-to-exceed speed limit (190 knots).
As soon as I got the nose of the aircraft pointed at the ground, Tom (in the back seat) started screaming. I completed the dive pullout pretty close to the ground – closer than I initially anticipated – and Tom screamed all of the way down. I was probably going about 180 knots as the bottom and pull over 2 Gs, something no other Army helicopter (at the time) could do. I climbed out back to altitude and ask Bill if that was what he was looking for? He acknowledged it was, and then some, and we headed back to base.
All of the way home Tom kept telling me he was going to beat me to death when we landed, etc. Fortunately, he had calmed down by the time we got back, and we remained friends, though I don’t recall him ever saying that Cobra pilots were wimps again.
Bill later told me that was the steepest dive he had ever seen and fully expected me to auger into the ground – I had to admit that I had overdone it, and would never try that again (and I didn’t).