FORT BRAGG 2

We had been working on the conversion for a couple of days when the warrant officer in charge came by the shop van one afternoon and asked us if we would like to take a training hop with them that night up to Raleigh Durham airport and back.  I said sure and Sgt Glasscock said that he thought that we all would like to go.  We were suppose to get chow and be back by 7 pm. Err, that's 19:00 hours in army time.  We all were back on time and waiting to board the chopper.

There was only one set of headphones in the back cabin and the engine was in the rear with two drive shafts and universal joints in the top of the cabin.  When it was running you could not hear the guy next to you scream at you.  Our Sgt had the headphones on and passed word to buckle up because we were ready to take off.  They revved up the engines and engaged the rotors and you could not hear yourself think.

Even though a chopper can take off vertically, they usually followed the same procedure as the fixed wing airplanes by rolling down the taxiway and using the runway to take off.  The pilot told our Sgt. on the intercom to tell everyone to stay buckled because they were going to give us a thrill by doing an auto-rotation.  (An auto-rotation is when there is an engine failure the pilot can keep the rotors spinning like a windmill by reversing the pitch of the rotors and while you drop like a rock and pulling positive pitch just before you become a greasy spot on the ground and, if done right, settle lightly to the ground. 

The Sgt passed down a motion of patting the belt and hooking his hands together and screaming to keep the belt on.  Klumb was on the end seat across from the door and he thought that it meant that it was okay to take off his belt.  As we were lifting off the sun was going down and Klumb wanted to take a picture of it from the air.  He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up by the door.  The door had a large Plexiglas panel in it and was designed to be easy to kick out in case of emergency.
 (Notice the Plexiglas panel in the door in the picture below.)

We were a few hundred feet in the air when the bottom dropped out.  Klumb was about half floating  in air and half dancing like a ballerina as we dropped.  We were afraid that 
Klumb  would hit the Plexiglas panel and go right through.  Luckily someone was able to grab him and pull him to a seat as we touched down and headed to Raleigh Durham.  Klumb kept his belt fastened all the way after that.  I don't know if he ever got that picture.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain 
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html#v4SLCFFTECl7rKUf.99