Armed Forces: Caps Set for Copters

ARMED FORCES

Over the tall green pines of south eastern Alabama, singly and in forma tions of seven, the ungainly olive-drab helicopters swoop and buzz like dragonflies. Night and day they churn above the Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker. They blast the wire-grass country with rockets, machine-gun slugs and grenades. They execute intricate maneuvers high in the sky and inches off the ground, turning once-tranquil skies into some of the world’s most congested airspace.

The copter concentration in Alabama is a product of the conflict in South Viet Nam and of the new combat techniques that it has generated. In that war without front lines, holding territory is less important than being able to move over it quickly and at will. Helicopters play a vital, versatile role: they ferry in whole battalions for surprise assaults, carry supplies and reinforcements to the besieged, as in the battle of Plei Me (TIME, Nov. 5), rescue the wounded and the stranded, rake the enemy with fire. And hundreds more are needed. Since President Johnson ordered the massive U.S. buildup in Viet Nam last summer, no single force has expanded faster than the Army’s helicopter corps.

Doubled Procurement. The number of choppers operating in Viet Nam has grown from 500 in June to 950 today. By year’s end there will be some 1,450 of them in Viet Nam. Helicopters and trained crews have been plucked from strategic reserve divisions to be pack aged into new units for immediate assignment to Viet Nam. For the long run, the Army has more than doubled its procurement of UH-1B (Huey) and CH-47A (Chinook) helicopters, and is trebling the number of new helicopter pilots it turns out—from 95 a month to 290 by early next year. The Pentagon has also authorized development of a fast new armed helicopter, the first designed exclusively as a weapons ship.

About 30% of the trainees are al ready commissioned officers, most of them in their 20s, whose silver wings can carry their careers high in the air cavalry, the Army’s youngest, fastest-growing branch. The other 70% are nearly all young volunteers fresh from high school and college, who become warrant officers* if they complete the flight course successfully. As new recruits, they take regular Army basic training for eight weeks and then go to Texas’ Fort Wolters for four weeks of preflight instruction.

Sense of Mission. Actual helicopter work starts at Wolters with an elementary 16-week course, after which the trainees—who must wear their peaked caps backwards until their first solo—are ready for an advanced 16-week course at Rucker. There they study and practice gunnery, formation flight, night operations, navigation, camouflage methods, jungle survival and base security. Nearly all the new pilots goto Viet Nam directly after graduation.

The faculty at Wolters and Rucker consists increasingly of gung-ho Viet Nam veterans who imbue their students with the sense of mission that marks their units in the war zone. “The heli copter has done a great job,” one gunship pilot tells his students. “If the chopper hadn’t been in Viet Nam, that place would have been long gone by now.” The close-cropped heads of warrant officer candidates nod enthusiastically. Says Major General John Tolson, commander of the Army Aviation Center: “They don’t seem to find what they want in college. They just want to fly helicopters. It’s a new cult.”

* A small group traditionally limited to certain specialties, warrant officers have most of the perquisites of regular junior officers, but can rise only to the rough equivalent of a commissioned major.