Flying in a Huey with a 101st Airborne Vietnam Vet | History Traveler Episode 162

[Music] all right well yesterday i had an opportunity to come out to this place and spend a little bit of time with the gateway chapter of the army aviation heritage foundation where we were taking an in-depth look at the huey helicopter which is is really the iconic aircraft of the vietnam war learned a lot i had had a real fascinating visit with with some really cool people well they invited me back and lord have mercy today we're going to be going up in the air with this thing [Music] [Music] all right now uh when it comes to being in a uh huey helicopter i have zero experience but i happen to be with a guy today who has a lot of experience flying into huey this is john stillman who is a vietnam veteran with 101st airborne and also co-author of the vietnam memoir jumping from helicopters so john knows way more than i do obviously so he's going to kind of take us around this this aircraft and tell us a little bit about uh what it was like flying in one of these in vietnam [Music] we're going to start here with this is where the two door gunners would sit one would be a crew chief that actually did the maintenance on the helicopter the other one would just be a a door gunner but they both had machine guns on both sides and it would have been mounted here on the floor or sometimes with a bungee cord from up here on top and that would just hold a machine gun all around him he would have a spare barrel because he'd have to change that barrel when it get got too hot he'd have another weapon too an m16 or some other weapon case he needed if they got shot down or anything but this was his office all day long and after they got done flying then they would have to service a uh helicopter get it ready for the next day fuel it check out anything the pilot told them there was problems we'll see if they could fix it before they flew again moving up to the middle of the helicopter in vietnam i never saw a seat once in a helicopter but i imagine one where high-ranking officers rode around and would had seat but they took them out for us this helicopter the fattest part of the helicopter is right here in the middle and it was designed that way to put a stretcher in there with a wounded and also anybody that was killed we would put them in this way head first and just lay them in there and stack them up in there riding in the helicopter usually the guy that would sit in the middle would would have the radio and that was a little bit more weight and he'd be in this in the middle and maybe he could talk a little bit more if they were talking to him on the radio i always like to sit in the door preferably on the other side because i'm right-handed and i could sit like on this side like that and hold hold my hand on this door frame and stand up and even step out like this up to the pilot and just ride this way and then get a nice cool breeze but i preferred to be on the other side that way keep my weapon in my right hand step on my left so you all you all would just stand on that skid yeah just stand on this skid like that and i got my arm wrapped and i'm kind of pushed up against this frame holding that frame and you know the only way you're going to go out is if you're right your arm would uh something happened to your arm we couldn't grip anymore but i mean other than that you're just uh standing here what i like to do on the other side staying that way sometimes you go up to the pilot like this when you're doing that and the window a little bit and if it was somebody new coming in it would give them kind of a little bit of a start you know with uh flying through the air with somebody else on the outside of the door no way normally the pilots i always looked at the back of their head at their helmet so you never really got to know any of them and what their face looked like they'd have sunglasses on and that helmet all wrapped up sometimes you they would coming up or off you would see their face a little bit but other than that i knew they were young for the young guys doing it but never got to talk to anybody or see any of them because the only time i saw him was in the field never back in the temperature area the door gunners you'd see him a little bit more because they're sitting back here and sometimes they would say something to you about the pilot doesn't want you to jump off when you're coming in but we jump off anyways about five foot off the ground just to jump off get away from it the goal was for this bird to get back up in the air before somebody shot it because we want them to be safe to come back to get us a you lifeline were something else that flew these things yes they were amazing wow i never heard of one that would would refuse to go in any place somebody even heard stories about where they were told not to come in and they did it anyways wow yes truly here heroes yeah [Music] it is pretty crazy how this aircraft right here completely changed warfare uh what it did is allowed the us military to get troops out in the field quicker so just by comparison in world war ii the average soldier in the pacific saw 40 days of combat throughout the entire war in vietnam the average soldier saw 240 days of combat in a year and it was because of these huey helicopters that were allowing them to to get men in and out at a a higher rate pretty crazy one other thing uh john is a super humble guy and he wouldn't say this himself so i'll say it for him go by jumping from helicopters his book that he co-wrote with his daughter lori is is absolutely amazing i actually put together a book trailer for him that i'll put a link to down in the description but go to amazon and get that book it's one of the best vietnam war memoirs that you will ever read [Music] [Music] all right so they're doing the test flight for the huey right now before they start taking people up well as a matter of fact there it is right there something else that the army aviation heritage foundation has here though that's really cool is a cobra now we're not going to be flying in the cobra today uh but the fact that they have one is just darn cool okay so i've stepped back a little bit to get away from the the rotor noise but uh cobra pretty pretty amazing aircraft um in vietnam they were finding that the hueys as a gunship were way way too slow so they developed the cobra it first saw combat in vietnam in 1968 was fitted with with two 2.75 inch rocket pods have a 7.62 minigun 40 millimeter grenade launcher so so this thing was a beast and uh john told me that in vietnam the first time that they saw this thing coming up from behind a berm it looked like some sort of alien spacecraft and then whenever it unleashed its arsenal they were just completely blown away pretty cool to see one of these in action though [Music] do [Music] okay uh so that was awesome uh man that thing that thing just just feels aggressive uh kind of standing nose to nose with a cobra gunship not something i get to do every day but yeah i can i can see why they chose that to be like the the attack vehicle uh for the forces there in vietnam all right we're going to head to the other end of the airport here to the landing zone for the huey and then oh gosh i guess we're going to take a ride okay so uh our huey is going to be coming in here directly now i'm going to have a a headset uh that is going to be able to pick up some of the the radio traffic and communication while we're flying i can't talk while i'm on the flight because they don't need some more on chattering on the coms while they're trying to fly the aircraft so yeah i see the huey coming in the distance now and we're gonna get get all set up and uh i guess do this all right well there it is there's our ride ah dear heavens lord have mercy on my poor stupid soul all right here we go [Music] there we go [Music] where's the cobra i can't see them yeah i can't either let me turn right and let's take a look okay you're on the go and increased traffic legacy 104 is on to go to the west across the center lines okay you're at 41. stay right about there right yeah we go out here to the left okay you're good play over these fields out here this is good roll out okay i got the water plant out there yeah yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah let's keep it towards the river so we don't impact these people coming around sounds good [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yep [Music] it's gonna be vfr to come down [Music] [Music] okay uh that was actually pretty wild holy smokes did some uh some dips and maneuvers that i was definitely not expecting uh but definitely a cool experience john what'd you think of that it was great bring bring back some memories good memories and i could just do stay in there all day long though it's just awesome awesome [Music] all right well i have to say that was pretty awesome got our cobra just landing here uh no lie i was a little bit nervous going into that but uh i love to experience history anywhere i can and to jump in a huey helicopter and ride in there with a man like john stillman well that's that's hard to beat so uh anyway so so glad that that we did this today don't know what i'm going to do to top that one that was fun [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 64,952

Rating: 4.985549 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, travel, history traveler, vietnam, vietnam war, military vehicles, vietnam war documentary, bell huey, vietnam helicopters, helicopter, war stories, vietnam vet, vietnam veteran, history underground, missouri, st louis, jumping from helicopters

Id: Maf9_wDMVow

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021