After seeing the figures on sorties flown, aircraft and crews lost, etc, I went back through some of our company records just to see what I could find that might be of interest. Our company was in country from April 66 until Nov 71. TOE strength in aircraft was 20 slicks and 8 gunships. The company went through a total of 164 aircraft during its existence. One slick was shot down with only one hour of flight time on it. A gunship was shot down before it had logged its first complete hour. On the other hand, a slick flew 3,300 hours before it wore out. One gunship stayed for 1,700 hours.
Combat losses (people) represented 51% of our casualties. Losses from mechanical failure 25%. A catagory probably lumped in with mechanical failure that I could isolate was "pilot error," this accounted for 17%. The rest, 9%, were in a catagory that I call "__it happens," where everyone is doing everything right, the aircraft is functioning perfectly and still something happens, like a sudden gust off a pinacle or something. These figures do not include passengers, only our company people.
Interestingly enough, we only had people killed in 7 combat shoot downs. Most of our KIA's occurred when one or two members of the crew were shot and the aircraft remained flyable.
Losses from mechanical failure averaged two fatalities per accident where the aircraft was a total loss. Pilot error was the most costly, averaging 4 fatalities per total loss, in other words the guy killed his entire crew.
Huey's were tough, resilient aircraft. Many of our ships were shot
up, a few down, were repaired and lived to fly another day.
On the subject of air medals, it was not a gimme. It was originally established in WW II and earning it required 25 combat missions or 100 logistical missions. In Viet Nam, the criteria was changed for Army (and I think Marine) helicopter aviators because a helicopter could fly six or eight missions a day. The new criteria was 25 combat hours, 100 logistical hours, and a new catagory was added, 50 command and control hours, because it was not quite combat but it certainly was more dangerous then ash and trash. The records originated two places, the aircraft logbook or the company morning report in the case of an infantry company flying a combat assault. In the Air Cav TOE units, the infantry was part of the crew of a particular ship (or vice-versa, the aircraft and crew were part of the infantry squad), just like APC's in a mech inf unit. The first airmedal was awarded in country because many guys quit flying after getting it. Any further awards were in oak leaf clusters and usually were not awarded until a person left Viet Nam. I got my first one within three weeks of arriving in country. Two years after I got back to the states I was called in front of the unit and presented my second air medal with 33 oak leaf clusters. The medal is too small for that many clusters so the number "33" is attached to the ribbon. If your company did not keep track of the time you spent in the air for combat assaults, there is no record for you to go back to. A combat assault could easily last an hour from take off to exit.
Rotorwash
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