My Two Cents’…

By Randolph P. Mains

 

 

In every industry there are a few thought-leaders who engage the community and transcend the status quo. In the world of helicopters, Captain Randy Mains is such a leader.

His "My Two Cents" column in every issue of Rotorcraft Pro magazine has been a consistent voice of sanity and entertainment for nearly 10 years. Over those years his indelible writings have made readers laugh, think, and (hopefully) fly much safer!

Randy's 50-plus years of aviation experience and wit now pours out of him into his second compilation of short articles and anecdotal stories. His keen insights, memorable musings, and practical applications are all collected here and freely dispensed to you in a silver cup. Drink them up and they will help you make it home safely.

I speak for the entire Rotorcraft Pro team when I say it is a great pleasure for us to present the words and wisdom of Randy Mains.

Lyn Burks

Editor-in-Chief

Rotorcraft Pro

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randolph P. Mains
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201072049

Randolph P. Mains

Randy Mains, at twenty-one, was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War Mains where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, 27 Air Medals and the Bronze Star Medal. In 1982, he received the first annual Golden Hour Award, recognizing his contributions to furthering the helicopter air ambulance concept in America. In 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Jim Charlson Safety Award for his efforts to promote safety in the helicopter air medical field. Following his deep passion to become a writer, while working full time as chief pilot for Life Flight, Mains attended San Diego State University earning a degree in Journalism and a minor in English Creative Writing. In December 1984 Mains was offered a job in the Sultanate of Oman as a uniformed Major in the Royal Oman Police Air Wing to set up a country-wide HEMS system. Mains lived and worked in Oman for thirteen years flying as a line pilot and head of their flight training department. Desperate to get the word out that if something was not done to stop the terrible HEMS accident rate back in America to put an end to more flight crews losing their lives Mains set about writing his first book, a novel inspired by actual events entitled The Golden Hour, published in 1989. In 1989, while working in Oman, he began writing what would become his highly successful second book entitled, Dear Mom I’m Alive—Letters Home from Blackwidow 25 detailing his one-year tour in Vietnam as a combat helicopter pilot that has now been optioned to be made into a movie. Mains was brought out of retirement two years later when he was recruited by a friend to fly a twenty-place Bell 214ST as a HEMS pilot for the king of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah off the kings 500’ yacht which he did for three years. Mains left Saudi to take a job with Abu Dhabi Aviation where he was a company type rating instructor and flight examiner operating the 412 EP flight simulator in Dubai training and examining pilots for the company. A year ago his company was awarded a HEMS contract using Western pilots in Saudi Arabia and was asked to write the SOP to set up the program over there. He is an EASA trained CRM instructor. He currently teaches a 5-day CRM train-the-trainer course sponsored by Oregon Aero.

Book preview

My_Two_Cents_V2_cover_Jun2.jpg

My Two Cents’…

volume 2

A collection of helicopter articles and personal stories by award-winning aviation Journalist,

Randy Mains

Rotor Tales Publishing 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Randolph P. Mains

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

without the written prior permission of the publisher.

Book design by SpicaBookDesign

Printed in Canada by Printorium Bookworks /

Island Blue, 
Victoria, B.C.

Welcome to volume two of My Two Cents, my second book containing a collection of articles I have written in my column in Rotorcraft Pro magazine over the past five years. You may notice the change in the title of my column, the idea for that change was made by the editor of the magazine, Lyn Burks because he thought My Two Cents’ Worth was redundant.

This compendium of articles picks up where the first book left off when I wrote My Two Cents’ Worth five years ago.

I’ve done something a little differently in this book. I have included a small sprinkling of stories and anecdotes that I’d written about in my previous books specifically, Dear Mom I’m Alive and Journey to the Golden Hour. I’ve included several stories from those books because I thought they would serve as background, a seasoning if you will, and adding flavor to the accompanying articles.

I hope you enjoy volume two of My Two Cents as much as I have enjoyed putting it together for you.

Safe Flying!

Contents

California Here We Come. February 1, 1971

Genesis of My Commercial Helicopter Flying Career

Star Struck

Peter Underhill Cattle Mustering

Line Oriented Flight Training

A Tremor In the Force Air Medical Fees Under Attack

Not All Twins are Alike

Helicopter Crew Resource Management Takes One Big Leap Forward

Are You a Good Role Model?

Becoming a Good Role Model

Sacred Trust

Use of the Risk Resource Management Tool

A Serendipitous Meeting

Integrity your Biggest Asset

Why Do I Do What I Do?

Listen and Learn

Ethical Decision Making

You are Safety’s Gatekeeper

Observation from a Reader on: ‘You Are Safety’s Gatekeeper’

Email from a Combat Pilot with a Life-Saving Tip

Best Unit In the World

Croc In Our Boat

Email from a Reader Regarding Commercial Pressure

Now I Know What My Dog’s Thinking

Reader Follow-Up to Now I Know What My Dog’s Thinking

To Become a Writer

Plato’s Cave

Just Say No!

Response From a Hems Pilot to Just Say No

Know Your Aircraft

Maria Langer’s Blog: Analysis of an Accident

The Velvet Elvis

Proof, CRM does Work to Prevent an Accident!

Where’s Management?

Words Have Concequences

A Case Study

A Reader’s Comments About My Article, ‘A Case Study’

Sacred Trust—The Kobe Bryant Crash

Thoughts From Two Readers Re: The Kobe Bryant Crash

Monty Python In the Back Seat

Wendy’s Tour

Virtual Crm During a Pandemic

The Story About How My Logo Came to Be

Knowing It’s Time to Hang Up the Headset

Byproduct of Being an Airmedical Pilot

Normalization of Deviance

A Unique Vision-Limiting Device

Cherish Your Wing Man

Evidence-based Training

United States Helicopter Safety Team’s Dire Warning

Flying In the Kingdom

My Friend Joe

California Here We Come. February 1, 1971

I reached up to adjust the rearview mirror in my ’67 Volkswagen Bug and could see Joe Sulak sitting behind the wheel of his shiny, copper-colored ’67 Dodge Charger. Thick black eyebrows, trimmed black mustache his features clearly visible. I could see his head bobbing up and down, back and forth, his fingers drumming the steering wheel, lips moving, singing along with a tune blasting at the usual chest-pounding level from the eight-track tape deck. I knew he was probably listening to one of his favorites, either by Steve Miller, or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, or the Buffalo Springfield.

In my car, California Dreamin’, by the Mamas and Papas, played as loudly as the small speakers of my eight-track tape deck could push them without blowing them out. I was pulling a 14-foot Laser sailboat behind me on a small trailer leading the way to Southern California, 1,200 miles to the west.

Today we were celebrating probably one of the happiest days in our young lives because today we had been released from our commitment to the United States Army. Today we were now officially civilians feeling like two birds released from the constraint of our cages. We’d been set free.

Joe and I had known one another since the beginning of our army careers. We’d joined the Army on the same date, he in Big Spring, Texas, and me in Los Angeles, California. We’d gone through basic training together at Fort Polk, Louisiana, then flight school in Fort Wolters, Texas, then Fort Rucker, Alabama. We even served in the same unit in Vietnam, first platoon, Charlie Company of the 101st Airborne Division stationed in I Corps in and around the DMZ. Joe’s call sign had been Black Widow Two-Two, Double Deuce, he’d call himself, on the radio over there. My call sign had been Black Widow Two-Five.

After returning to ‘The World’ from Vietnam, we had served the past fourteen months as flight instructors at Fort Wolters, Texas, the US Army’s primary helicopter training base, sharing a two-bedroom apartment in Fort Worth during that time. Today was the day we’d been anticipating for months, the day we’d be leaving the Army for good.

I had $850 in my wallet, my final pay from the Army paymaster, not much money to begin my new life as a civilian, but I wasn’t concerned. I felt a thousand times richer. I was driving into an uncertain future with no prospects to look forward to other than the heady promise of huge potential. We were two young men giddy with euphoria.

Joe and I had discussed our plans many times over the past several months, outlining what we would do once we reached California. We would collect unemployment checks, rent an apartment in Huntington Beach, and send out resumes to helicopter companies to try to find a flying job somewhere—anywhere,—in the United States. I would teach Joe how to surf and we would just ‘be’. We both felt we sorely needed some well-deserved R&R after serving nearly three-and-a-half years in the Army during one of the most tumultuous times in our nation’s history. Joe and I wanted to get our heads back into being civilians again. We both felt we were going back to the other side, the peaceful side, away from the much maligned establishment we’d been part of. We were looking forward to going to a calmer, more tolerant place.

After Joe and I returned home from Vietnam in October 1969, it didn’t take either of us long to decide we did not want to be in the Army any longer. Following our one-year tour over there we had gone back home for our one-month leave. Joe went back to his hometown of Big Spring, Texas; I went back to Huntington Beach, California. When we met up a month later to report for duty at Fort Wolters, Texas, we noticed in one another that our attitudes had changed, primarily because of the change in consciousness we saw in the general public toward the war and those of us who had fought in it.

We were still very young men when we returned from the war. I was 23. Joe was 21. We felt our youth was slipping away. We wanted in on the free love and the free thinking prevalent during the hippy era that was spreading and gaining popularity across the land following the philosophy of ‘doing your own thing.’ Doing my own thing would have included getting on a surfboard again in Southern California, not going to central Texas to be a flight instructor in the US Army. But, of course, when you are in the Army you cannot quit, not without severe and unpleasant consequences. So Joe and I simply decided to make the best of the situation and do our time until allowed to leave, which happened to be today. Today was the day of our release. We were finally headed westbound from Fort Worth, passing through Mineral Wells, on our way to the West Coast.

We drove past the gates of Fort Wolters for one last time. Wolters, as it was called by those who served there, was the primary flight training base for all future Army helicopter pilots. It was one of the largest, if not the largest, helicopter training facility in the world at the time. Joe and I had taught young men the basics of flying so that they could eventually go on to fight a war that we had not been able to win.

I peered out to my right and could see the OH-23 and TH-55 training helicopters coming into view, perched on their pedestals on each side of the entrance to the base. I remember thinking, with great relish, this would be the last time Joe and I ever set foot on that training base again, halleluiah!

Leaving Mineral Wells and the Army behind us in the rearview mirror and with nineteen hours of driving ahead of us gave me time to reflect on those three years, four months and nineteen days I had spent in the US Army. I knew that was exactly how long I had served because it was documented on my DD-214, the one-page document issued to all servicemen when they leave the US military. That one page summed up my short career, a page that for many of us would supply a lifetime of memories. I knew there were guys with whom I’d served whose military service would be the best, the most nostalgic and most revisited memories of their lives. I hoped I had more adventures ahead of me and that my experiences in the Army would simply be one small chapter amongst many varied and interesting chapters I would have in my life.

I thought back at how lucky Joe and I had been to make it through our one-year tour of duty in Vietnam without being killed, maimed or affected adversely psychologically. We had been told by our tactical officers in flight school, prior to going over to Vietnam, Look around you, candidate, and look around you good because one in three of you isn’t coming back.

Joe and I had beaten those odds. We had survived. There was one flight Joe had over there, however, that I witnessed where he nearly didn’t make it. In fact, it was the closest he came to being killed.

We’d been in country for nearly eight months, young seasoned combat veterans at that stage of our tour, both of us aircraft commanders in charge of our own helicopters. We were a flight of three ships sent to extract a small unit south of LZ Sarge. Joe was flying the first helicopter. Peter Underhill was flying the second helicopter. I was piloting the third.

Pete and I flew our machines a safe distance from the small landing zone that looked like a dark hole carved out of the thick jungle. We circled lazily, waiting for our turn to descend into the hover-hole to which Joe was now setting up his approach.

I could hear Joe’s voice in my green flight helmet talking on the FM radio to the team leader. I have your yellow smoke, unit seven-oh-two. Have you had any enemy contact in the last few hours?

Negative, Blackwidow Double-Deuce. Charlie’s nowhere around, from what we can tell. You’re clear to come in.

Roger that, be there in two mikes.

Pete and I had a good vantage point from where we were circling our helicopters at 1500’, our standard altitude for avoiding small-arms fire.

I could see Joe’s ship below approach the hole in the jungle, then come to a hover over it and begin its descent, disappearing as if swallowed up by the jungle. It was supposed to be a routine extraction, but like many routine extractions in the past, we knew it could suddenly turn into a nightmare.

Joe’s voice exploded over the radio like a thunder clap. Receiving fire! Receiving fire! he yelled over the radio.

I could hear the rat-tat-tat-tat of machine gun fire in the background. I watched the black hole in the jungle, looking for any sign of Joe’s helicopter. After a few long seconds, I could see a puff of smoke surround Joe’s chopper as it rocketed upward out of the hover-hole. Once clear of the surrounding trees, the nose of the helicopter dipped forward to gain airspeed.

Peter Underhill and I had the same reaction. We both threw our helicopters into a spiraling downward dive toward Joe’s ship to join him.

I radioed, Joe, what happened down there? Are you OK? Anyone hurt?

We got hit with an RPG (rocket propelled grenade). It was fired from the tree line as we were about to touch down. My crew chief said he saw it coming and it went through the tail rotor. He began firing into the jungle where he saw it come from. I’ve got one hell of a vibration in the tail rotor pedals. We’re heading to LZ Vandergriff. Wish us luck.

Roger, Joe. Pete and I’ll take up formation on you to check out any damage.

LZ Vandergriff was a ten minute flight away. As I dove down, losing altitude to maneuver my helicopter next to Joe’s, I tried not to think about the consequences if the tail rotor disintegrated on Joe’s aircraft. The tail rotor counteracts the torque caused by the main rotor. If Joe lost his tail rotor his aircraft would begin to spin uncontrollably. The only thing Joe could do was to roll the throttle off to take the torque from the engine to the main rotor, entering what is called autorotation. He’d come down like an auto gyro. If his tail rotor failed he and his crew were going down, that was for certain. The only variable was whether he would go down spinning or not. We were flying over triple-canopy jungle at the moment. Joe’s chances of survival, if it came to that, were not good. We all prayed the tail rotor would hold together long enough to make it to LZ Vandergriff.

Peter Underhill maneuvered his aircraft to take up formation on Joe’s right side. I took up formation on Joe’s left. We both flew as tight on Joe’s aircraft as we dared to try to see what damage had been caused by the enemy RPG.

Pete’s voice came over the radio, I can see a few holes on your tail boom, Joe. Can’t make out anything on your tail rotor, though.

I concurred. I see holes on the left side of your tail boom, too, Joe. Can’t make out anything on your tail rotor either.

Roger, guys. Stay close.

You can bet on it, Joe.

It was a very long ten minutes to LZ Vandergriff. Joe declared an emergency to the tower controller there and was given priority to land. He made a running landing like a fixed-wing, touching the skids down on the metal PSP—perforated steel planking—airstrip in the event the tail rotor failed. He came to a sliding stop, then quickly shut down the turbine engine and hopped out. Pete and I landed our helicopters nearby and joined Joe and his crew chief and gunner who were standing by the ship’s tail, checking out the damage to the tail rotor.

As I approached, I could see the damage clearly. Joe and his crew had been extremely lucky. A jagged hole caused by a piece of shrapnel from the RPG the size of a golf ball had ripped into one of the two tail rotor blades. There were also smaller holes peppered throughout the blade and the tail rotor pylon behind it.

Joe, you are one lucky guy, I said with much relief, slapping him on the back.

Don’t I know it, Randy. Don’t I know it.

I shook my head again, recalling the memory, as we continued driving westward across the expanses of nothingness somewhere between Pecos, Texas, and Van Horn. The farther west we traveled the more it began to sink in that I was at last breaking free from the constraints of the Army. I felt I was driving towards a significant crossroads in my life, one full of free choices wrapped in endless possibilities. I wondered what lay ahead for me. Would I ever fly a helicopter again? A dream Joe and I both had was to fly a helicopter in Southern California, but I knew I would have a better chance of surfing Malibu and having it to myself than that happening. How about school? Would I go back to college again after nearly flunking out the first time? I wondered would I ever see Shari again and her young son, Wade? She and I had been dating for a year while I was living in Fort Worth. I hoped so. I was leaving them both behind so that I could concentrate on decompressing, on getting back to what I termed normal. I needed to heal, to get back on track, to become a civilian again and rejoin the free and unrestrained life I had left behind nearly three-and-a-half years ago. All I wanted to do now was to try and regain the youth I felt I had lost while serving in the Army.

The DD-214 summed up my Army career in one page. That single piece of paper attesting to the fact that I had fulfilled an obligation to my country, earning an Honorable Discharge for time served. It also stated that I had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for, as the citation read, ‘Heroism while participating in aerial flight’. It also noted that I had earned twenty-seven Air Medals, each air medal signifying twenty-five missions in combat. I had received the Bronze Star Medal, etc. etc. etc. None of it meant as much to me as the sweet freedom awaiting me back home as a civilian in Southern California.

Joe and I had unwittingly been in the Army during a time in our nation’s history when public sentiment had done a complete one-eighty, going from very conservative to very liberal. When I joined the service to go off to war I had been supported and encouraged by my friends and family members who had slapped me on the back and told me to go get ’em Randy, meaning wipe out the communist threat in Vietnam so that it would