Wolters relied on three models of small training helicopters, all powered by gasoline-fueled piston engines.
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I had to show some of them how to buckle a seat belt-they were that green.” “Some had never been in a plane, and some were fixed-wing pilots. Wayne Brown, who worked at Wolters as a flight instructor for contractor Southern Airways. “There was a huge range of experience,” recalls A. Located in north-central Texas, the school, which ran from 1956 until the end of the Vietnam War in 1973, was an essential part of the pressure cooker process that transformed anybody who qualified-from teenagers to grizzled combat officers-into world-class helicopter pilots. Of all the helicopter pilots who flew in Vietnam, 95 percent passed through the center at Wolters. I was 20 years old in flight school.” That school was the Primary Helicopter Center at Fort Wolters, Texas. “My first job as an adult was to fly around in a helicopter and let people shoot at me. “We were all young and crazy then,” says Jim Messinger, who flew Hueys in Vietnam. The Army crew cleared a path for the relief helicopters to return. But then a single Huey swooped over the treetops, door guns blazing. Hickey recalled a wave of fear and disappointment among the survivors. The defenders held the perimeter through the night, but in the morning, enemy machine guns drove off six Marine Choctaw helicopters attempting to deliver reinforcements. On July 5, hundreds of enemy soldiers attacked after midnight. I had to sit in the seat and cover my eyes with my hands.”īut he appreciated the Army fliers more during a visit to the remote Green Beret camp Nam Dong in 1964. “I hated choppers,” Hickey recalled in 2006, “the way they banked in the turns, flew toward treetops, and jumped up at the last minute. Video: Helicopter Training at Fort Wolters