I fly airplanes and helicopters professionally and will hopefully never forget the simple things like a short hop around the pattern, a trip to the local control tower, or how the view from above can be amazing.

Everyone in the business has a story that is worth listening to.

Safe travels and good luck in the future.

Become A Marine Pilot

However, as “no good deed goes unpunished,” this guy also gave me a rather rude awakening later in the flight. We had to make a position report, and in parts of West Texas, that means climbing way up into “nose bleed” territory (defined by Army pilots as “anything over 100 ft AGL”). We had to climb to nearly 6,000 feet to obtain radio contact, and I was splitting my concentration between keeping visual contact with the rest of my flight ( it’s tough keeping track of olive drab helicopters nearly 5,000+ ft below you that blend almost perfectly with the terrain), looking for other aircraft at my altitude, keeping an eye on my crew chief “co-pilot” (who was flying at the time), and frankly enjoying the momentary respite from the 95 degree heat, when suddenly the engine noise decreased to a whisper. My training took over, and I immediately took the controls, lowered the collective, established best glide airspeed, and selected the best available landing area. That took maybe 5 seconds, but seemed like 3 lifetimes… Once I knew I had the landing zone made, I turned my attention to what the heck had happened. Almost immediately, I noticed that the engine RPM was at flight idle. I checked the throttle, and sure enough, it had been reduced to the flight idle detent. I brought the power back up, and turned to look at my crew chief (who as you will recall was flying at the time the “power loss” occurred), and gave him “the look”… He just smiled and said that he’d always wanted to experience an autorotation, and thought this was as good a time as any to see what it was like! (At our next stop, he learned that his antics had earned him the “back seat” for the next 2.5 hour leg – a severe punishment, since those seats had a 1-inch foam pad resting on the armor plating that protected the under-seat fuel tank.)