 In a few minutes, these Army combat troops will be miles from here. They will arrive at the place and at the time dictated by the necessities of their mission. They will pass swiftly over terrain that would take days of travel on foot. They arrive fresh, fully equipped and ready to function. This is possible because of the strange-looking, savage-sounding machines that brought them. The Army helicopters and the men who fly the choppers are skilled, highly trained professionals, experts in this new aspect of Army mobility. Just where and how these men acquire that expertise is the subject of today's big picture. Today, most of the Army's chopper pilots begin their training here at Fort Walters, Texas. I don't crash my whirly bird, I don't crash my whirly bird. And my IP, he got killed, and my IP, he got killed. Oh my goodness, what a thrill, oh my goodness, what a thrill. You got a name with Charlie Combs, you got a name with Charlie Combs. Am I right or wrong? You're right! Can I sing a song? One of the main sources of trained copter pilots is the Army's warrant officer candidate program. Those who qualify enlist especially for copter training. And if they make it, they graduate both as warrant officers and as qualified pilots. But that day seems a long way off when a candidate first begins his pre-flight training at Fort Walters. And his new way of life is reflected by his room, orderly, precise discipline. On arrival, each candidate receives an APH-5 flight helmet. He knows it will be weeks before he can wear it for real, but it's nice to look forward to. Meantime, in four weeks of pre-flight instruction, he is introduced to the why of aerodynamic lift, the how of heavier-than-air flight. He comes to understand just what it is that makes it possible to put a heavy piece of machinery into the sky and keep it there. He spends a lot of time on his map reading technique because he'll be traveling across the terrain a lot faster than a man on foot who can stop and puzzle things out. He learns a new language, terms like conning and conning angle, rototip, path plane, blade twist, pendulum action, torque reaction. These come to have meaning for him eventually. And just when he thinks the big day will never come, it does. Here the fledgling pilot will learn how a helicopter actually works. In the new TH-55 trainer, it's a standard commercial model, unmodified or off the shelf. Basically all copter controls are the same. Move this gizmo up to go up, down to go down. The stick in your right hand controls movement to the sides, forward or backward. The pedals are for keeping the copter headed where you want it headed. From the main heliport at Walters, the copters take off to fan out toward the various training fields or stage fields scattered throughout the countryside. On a good flying day, some 400 copters will be in the air, which means a lot of learning is going on. During pre-solo, the instructor pilot or IP is a civilian from a large company contracted for the job. These civilian experts are real pros when it comes to instructing, and at the various stage fields around Fort Walters, they really work at it. The student watches how it's done, the strange business of hovering hundreds of pounds of machinery above the ground, hanging on a set of whistling blades. For a hummingbird, it's natural. For a man strapped into a vibrating seat while something that roars and swishes picks him up and holds him, it's an experience. In the jam packed weeks ahead, there are many more moments the candidate pilot will remember. For example, the sudden chilling drop the first time the instructor cuts power and uses the unpowered whistling blades to bring the chopper down safely in a simulated emergency landing. These pre-solo hours of flight go swiftly. There's a lot to do, watching the work of an expert, seeing how it's done and feeling how it's done by following his movements on the control. Then comes another moment to remember. Okay, you take it. Well, everybody has to start somewhere. Actually, for most of these hand-picked candidates, it doesn't take long to get the feel of things. Soon the day comes when the candidate brings it in for a nice smooth landing, and a new phase of his flight training is about to begin. It's time to solo. He knows he's ready or they wouldn't be sending him up alone, but it sure feels different with that other seat empty. That first solo flight is a major step forward, one which deserves and gets the special recognition of his fellow candidates. Having solo, he now wears wings on his cap, and from now on his instructors will be experienced army pilots, almost all of them combat veterans of Vietnam. Under his military instructors, he gets out of the traffic pattern. Now he's flying his cross country, and rugged country it is. He has to learn to fly low and fast, and keep track of where he is and where he's going. This takes a lot of practice. Low-level navigation is tough because a copter moving at 70 knots, 50 feet off the ground, uses up landmarks like a jet moving at 1,400 knots, 1,000 feet up. Daily, as the challenges become more difficult, the candidates' ability and confidence grow. The candidate starts learning to coordinate his flight with other aircraft. Formation flying and aerial reconnaissance, under all sorts of weather, temperature, and lighting conditions. The combat chopper pilot will face all these situations and worse. The time to learn is now. The instructors work hard, and they work their students hard. Now is the time to analyze mistakes and get them corrected. A veteran instructor knows the cost of a single mistake, if it is made in the air above a valley full of Viet Cong. And so it goes. Half of each day is spent on the flight line. And the other half in classroom instruction, until, almost before he realizes it, he's graduating. Now his primary training is over. And the next phase is about to begin, halfway across the country. Fort Wucker, Alabama is the home of the United States Army Aviation Center. It will also be the candidate's home for his final weeks of training. Hanshee Army Airfield at Fort Wucker is the largest heliport in the free world, except for An Ki in Vietnam. When training is in full swing, there are more takeoffs and landings performed here than at all three major New York airports. From here on an average day, some 600 copters will be operating. And this takes elbow room, well over 3 million square feet of concrete hard top. Still the individual candidate is really interested only in the space it takes to accommodate one chopper, is. And for the first 50 hours of flying here at Wucker, that means a TH-13T which is specially equipped for instrument training. The candidate has already learned the fundamentals of flying a copter at Fort Walters. Now he must begin to master the complexities. At first glance, it looks like a lot of instruments to keep track of. And it is, but oddly enough, that isn't the problem so much as learning to TRUST the instruments. When you can't see anything but the instruments, your senses may tell you you're applying upside down. But if the instruments say not, you've got to believe the instruments. At Fort Wucker, this is literally the first thing the candidate pilot has to learn. Once he has learned to TRUST his instrument panel rather than his easily fooled senses, the candidate learns to USE that trust. He learns to navigate from point to point by homing on radio beacons, an activity known as ADF operations. He also learns how to make a ground-controlled approach, GCA, which simply means that you come in for a landing when you can't see the ground, on the basis of instructions given to you by a man on the ground who is tracking you on radar. It takes a bit of learning, but it's worth the effort. This ability is like a ship's life raft. When you need it, you need it bad. You need it bad. Once his instrument training is completed, the candidate is ready for a meeting he's been looking forward to, with the UH-1, the Huey, VASC, streamlined, gas turbine powered. This is not another trainer. This is the tough and versatile veteran aircraft that has proven itself in combat. This, he feels, and well, he might. Here's the real McCoy. Fort Rucker has eight stage fields to work from, and it gets full use out of all of them. Here the candidate practices and repractices under the experienced eyes of his veteran instructor, landings with power and without, and the candidate cannot now be satisfied just to land without bending the hardware. He must land by the book and on the spot. And even if he does it perfectly, it's try, try again. As the candidate's skill develops, he faces the challenge of working in and out of some ticklish places. As the book calls them, pinnacles, confined areas, and slopes. As he circles to check it out, this confined area looks like just what his instructor says it is. A circle of perfect safety surrounded by disaster. If you should come in too steep or too close to the trees, or make any one of a dozen wrong moves, you could, as they say in chopper circles, roll it up in a little ball. The learning goes on, and in more ways than one. In the maintenance training area at Rucker, crew chiefs-to-be are trained in the intricacies of keeping all the parts cooperating, so that the chopper as a whole can fly. No potential pilot can afford to ignore the maintenance end of things either. Here at Rucker, each candidate pilot becomes familiar with the basic operational systems of the helicopter. It may not be as exciting as handling the controls of a Huey in flight, but maintenance, every day, undramatic maintenance, may be the difference between a machine you can depend on and one that might let you down hard. The pilot who wants to keep on flying keeps this in mind. And they do keep on flying, sharpening their skills, practicing the techniques that are part of combat aviation, like low-level, high-speed approaches to a target area in an armed compter. Familiarization runs in the armed Huey gunships are part of every candidate's training at Rucker. The rule is, flash in just above the tree tops, drop down over the machine gun range, moving fast and ready to shoot. Finally, everything the candidate pilot has learned is put to the test during an eight-day problem in the field toward the end of his stay at Rucker. For a weekend a day, he lives and works in the boondocks, getting a foretaste of the type of working conditions he'll experience overseas. Troop lift, resupply, casualty evacuation, armed reconnaissance, armed escort, day and night navigation from point to point, on schedule and on the mark. This is what this eight days is all about. And there's no doubt in anyone's mind as to the reality of the operation they are preparing for. Here the instructor pilots, like the battle season veterans, the newcomers will fly within the combat zone, act as older brothers, advisors and examples. But they are still the IPs, constantly watching, grading, evaluating the performance of each candidate. And by now that performance is at a fairly high level. Proficiency in handling aircraft as such is one thing. However, the exacting business of going from A to B to C, with maximum accuracy and minimum loss of time, is something more. This vital ABC gets plenty of attention during these eight days. Jerry Kahn's full of sand provide weight to simulate a full load of troops or supplies, and give the chopper the handling and lift characteristics that a payload over Vietnam would have. It's a full eight days and they make the most of it. They work as long as there's daylight. Then they work some more when there is no daylight. The candidate rests whenever he can, just as he will in a combat zone. And just as in a combat zone, this is called an ego flight. No warning, just the knowledge that at any time, day or night, the alarm may sound. And from that moment everyone is moving against a stopwatch. From a sound sleep, through the operations briefing, into the previously inspected Hueys, and off the ground in six minutes is quite respectable. It is not uncommon. It has become a tradition that when the intensive eight days in the field are completed, the candidates fly over the post in mass formation. On graduation day, each man already wears his warrant officer's bars. He has received them the day before graduation, because his wings can only be awarded to him after he is officially a warrant officer. He has made it, all the way. The man who graduates here is a qualified pilot, skilled and ready, and much needed. His next duty station will in all likelihood be Vietnam. And in Vietnam, the reason for all the effort and training and complex machinery remains, to make the man with the dirty boots and the clean weapon more effective. To get him to his objective, faster, safer, to deliver him pressure more ready, more able, to keep him better supplied in the combat zone, to get him to medical help faster if he should get hurt. This is what the choppers are for, and they have proven that they can do the job. So have the men who fly them. They are no less than what we call them at the start, skilled, highly trained professionals, but chopper pilots.