[R-390] R390A not working at all

[Mark Huss]

A little off-topic, but everyone likes a war story. ;-)

Yes and No. But I grabbed every chance I could to go up. When the MLQ 
was up on L, I would either drive up in my Duce, or caught the chopper 
on Phoenix Airlines if it needed fixing NOW. Sometimes I would stay the 
night, or fix something else while I was up there ( to stay a bit 
longer). My biggest memory of L was being up on the Tower working on the 
coax feed. I bumped my TK-105 toolkit (middle of winter, and that wind 
was COLD, even wearing everything I could get my hands on). Watched it 
sail majestically down until it hit. And exploded. I think a couple of 
the tools ended up in NK. :-D
P.S. Ten minutes after I got back to the Field Station, I mailed a MO to 
LL Bean for the Biggest, warmest Parka they had in stock. The part about 
being used for Arctic Expeditions caught my eye! Still got it, too.

A guy named Bednark had the MLQ's before I did. He might have been there 
when you were. He got banned after his first chopper ride back from L. 
Didn't like the way the Pilots would just sort of lift off, move a bit 
over, then scream down the mountain a few feet up. I thought it was a blast!

L was also where 'Crash' wrecked one of the Jeeps. Drove it off the 
edge, and it flattened the Guard Outhouse just as the Korean Guard 
stepped out. He was not amused.

Also one time, in the Spring, I think, we had a new kid in Maintenance. 
Henderson, or something. I had to drive the Duce up to L to fix the MLQ, 
and he wanted to tag along. When we left, I put the brakes on at that 
first turn by the Helipad. No Brakes. Good air pressure, though. But 
without brakes, there was no way i could stop before the bottom. So I 
downshifted and went down the hill using nothing but compression 
braking. And with a Maintenance hut on the back!. Scott's staring at the 
scenery, whistling a happy tune, completely clueless. At the bottom, i 
thought about how long it would take to get a wrecker there from Red 
Cloud. And said the hell with it. Drove all the way back until just 
outside Red Cloud. Then pulled over at the monument there. Scott asked 
way we stopped. I told him the brakes had gone out. He said 'Lucky they 
did not go out on the hill'. I told him 'Nah, they went out at the 
Helipad.' Heard a little squeek and looked up. The look on his face was 
priceless! He spent the next ten minutes puking beside the truck. Very 
young Kid. I don't think my 'Now why would I want to do something silly 
like that for!' attitude helped much.

God, I Loved that Duce. Heard the Army is thinking about getting rid of 
them. First the R-390A, then the 45, then the Wart-Hog, now the Duce. 
They must have a Death Wish!

Do you remember the name of that village at the bottom of L? Had that 
little tiny restaurant/Soju house. I used to always throw a case of 'C's 
in the back, because the Lady who ran it liked them. And she would trade 
a case for anything on the menu.

One thing you missed was the Duck. One day, I hear a Mohawk real loud in 
the truck, engines surging. I step out, and there is a Mohawk about five 
hundred feet off the ground over the Antenna Farm doing a beautiful 
Aerobatics show. When he headed back to the Runway, he passed over a 
hundred feet up in a turn. There was a Frigging Duck driving! I shared a 
hootch with a Mohawk Aircraft Electronics Tech, so I asked him about it. 
Seems a new Pilot got run over the coals that afternoon by the 146th CO 
for doing Aerobatics. Turns out it was the Original Disco Duck out of 
Seattle. The one in that stupid song. He came up with the Disco Duck 
shtick for some radio station there. Didn't get any money, though he 
sued. When he ran out of money, he went to the Recruiters and rejoined 
on the condition he was guaranteed Mohawks. Supposedly wore the Duck 
outfit when he would fly missions along the DMZ. Theory being, or so he 
said, that if he ended up going down on the wrong side of the DMZ, the 
NKers would hesitate shooting a six foot Duck.

The Mohawk Pilots had an interesting landing pattern. They would fly the 
downwind leg almost directly over the Airstrip. At the end of the 
runway. they would peal over and dive straight down, then pull up just 
in time for the wheels to hit the numbers. Then they would throw the 
props in reverse, and stop about even with the Motor Pool where I 
worked. One day, I'm laying down in my lawn chair on top of my Duce when 
here comes a Mohawk. Same routine as always, except he touched down a 
bit farther down the runway than usual. Engines roar as he puts it in 
reverse. And in the blink of an eye, the nose of the Mohawk is pointed 
straight at me! Quite a feat as at that point, I am at right angles to 
the runway! Before I could blink, the Mohawk is pointed straight again, 
and lofting off. I look over at Bob sitting next to me, and we both say 
'Did you see what I saw?" About ten minutes later, here comes someone 
else in the pattern. But it is not a Mohawk as it went out about five 
miles and is slowly coming in. Sure enough, it was that same Mohawk. 
Never knew they could land long and slow like that. Turns out a U-21 
Pilot talked one of the Mohawk Pilots into giving him a check ride. And 
when he pulled it into reverse, his hand slipped? But only one prop went 
into reverse. Got it straightened out. but it scared him so bad he did a 
long, slow approach.
For those of you who doubt me, ASA was famed for having some of the 
weirdest Fliers in the Army. Half of them were Space-Cases, the other 
half were just crazy. And they were probably the best pilots outside of 
Air America. I saw a U-21 ( a cross between a Beech King Air and Queen 
Air for you civilians) that had lost half its port wing from a spar 
failure. The pilot flew it back to xxxx with a load of replacements. I 
don't think even Beech knew how he did it. At least that was what the 
Beech Engineers said. Thing was, he always flew with a Teddy Bear as his 
co-pilot. He would kick the Co-Pilot out of the Cockpit, and strap his 
Teddy Bear in. He would even eat with it at the Mess Hall, making a tray 
for it and everything. I suppose the Modern Army wouldn't put up with 
that. Pity, really.

Flowertime01 at wmconnect.com wrote:
> Mark,
>
> I just come back on line after the week end doing Robots.
>
> We you at Det L. ?
> Doing time on the mountain top with only two R390's in a cement block 
> building?
> Had the milky parked out front on the North side?
>
> It is a mountain as it is 2,027 feet high. Yup that last 27 feet up the hill 
> top south of the building is a mountian peak.
>
> Beautiful view except for that wire fence across the North Valley floor.
> I loved it up their even if it was cold as hell but then any place is colder 
> than hell.
> I was young then and cold was OK. Some days you were standing in the clouds 
> or even above the clouds.
>
> Roger AI4NI
>
>
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Some people are like a Slinky .. not really good for anything,
but you still can’t help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.
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