Randy Mains is an author of several books, a public speaker, and a
CRM/AMRM Consultant who continues to work in the helicopter industry after a long career of aviation
adventure. He currently serves as Chief CRM/AMRM instructor for
Oregon Aero. He may be contacted at
randym@oregonaero.com
myself that I could do it. The take off was a little weird. Instead
of pushing the cyclic forward to accelerate the machine through translational life, I was told to keep it neutral and ‘roll’ the little thumb wheel forward, tilting the na- celles forward and adding (pushing) throt- tle to keep from sinking. Soon we had transitioned into fixed-wing mode, and I was flying at 295 knots low-level, 1000’ over the blue Pacific. Just as I was begin- ning to relax, I noticed tracer rounds being fired at me from a patrol boat below. Jeff encouragingly said, “Just avoid fire like you would in Vietnam!” I needed no fur- ther coaxing as I threw the cyclic to the left. The horizon went vertical as I per- formed some pretty radical evasive ma- neuvers to avoid being shot down. It was a blast. Jeff said, “Now here come the Migs.” “Migs!” I exclaimed. “What should I
do?”
“Fly straight at them.” “What? Are you nuts!” “Trust me.” Which I did, flying against all my in-
stincts. I wanted to dive and hide, but where? I was over the ocean. Luckily they missed me. For one hour and fifteen minutes I flew
the thing, landed on a naval vessel (suc- cessfully) and practiced mid-air refueling on a C-130 at 200 knots (more practice needed there). It was cool and I am so glad I was given
the wonderful opportunity to do it. Would I want to fly the tilt-rotor all the time? I don’t think so. I think I’ll stick with flying ‘real’ helicopters --- and live with my dyslexia.
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