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LML Duramax Silverado Build Thread [Part 1]

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KensAuto:
Have a lot os stuff on the burner at the moment.
Thinking about the build, this group, and still writing the second book. Wrote all morning...fingers are putty!
Anyone want to read some of the junk from book #2?

Quote:
Originally Posted by G*****D******
"Always up for some of your writing. Have enjoyed everything you have written so far."

OK, here's a little something.
Happened many moons ago...
If you read my book, you know it jumps around a bunch but is mostly about stuff that happens in the last two wars.
One of my publishers asked me to write a bio sort of thing. Keeping it all in order, so that's what book #2 is all about. I write something for it almost every day. THis is from today:

The training to become a night stalker was pretty intense. There was PT all the time, running then weight lifting, more running and some more weight lifting. Back in those days there wasn’t a formal system of training yet so a new guy like me just reported to the hangar and started training with the instructor pilots. I worked with some good ones. Al Wilson wasn’t much older than me, but had a lot of experience in the Chinook which I had only just learned how to fly. Then there was Eddie Hill a slow talking Louisiana boy who wasn’t a boy at all. Finally there was John who was our senior instructor pilot. He was all business and operated from the premise that with everything we do we need to strive for perfection. Landing a foot right of centerline on an emergency running landing on a runway was not satisfactory, on center was. I don’t think there was much distance between satisfactory and perfect with John. The thing was, that on any day, he could back it up with performance. He wasn’t one who couldn’t walk the walk, no sir, he set the pace.
I would alternate between the IP’s as they flew me nightly in our modified Chinooks, teaching me mission tasks. You see training in the Army is broken down into levels. Obviously the first step would be the actual aircraft qualification which in most cases took place at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. That’s where I had learned to fly those leaky, starving for love orange paneled Chinooks. Once I had qualified but not yet mastered the tasks they required of me, I was released to my next unit. The Night stalkers would first assess my abilities to see where I fell in the proficiency ladder. In my case all that was pre determined as I had been a former Aeroscout pilot and knew nothing of the Chinook or how to operate it. Additionally, I had never flown the Chinook in a regular Army unit like the 101st Airborne for example, to get some time under my belt with the airframe. Nope, I was skipping college and going straight for my masters directly from high school. I didn’t only have to learn to become a proficient Chinook pilot hauling sling loads and flying assaults, but I had to learn special mission tasks as well.
That’s where the rubber meets the road with the 160th. Everything they do is special. Almost nothing is normal. Whereas my newly qualified Chinook pilot brothers in the 101st were honing their skills hooking up sling loads in dusty LZ’s, I was learning aft wheel landings on buildings, and fast rope approaches and a host of other things. All of that required quite a bit of practice, hence all the flight training I was currently receiving.
On this fateful night I would be flying with Eddie Hill. It would be a good flight. Eddie almost never became flustered when a newbie like me fudged up something. He would just show you the error of your ways and send you along to do it again. We were going out to a place called “Golden Eagle” which was a cleared off area on the south side of Fort Campbell. He wanted me to practice hooking up and carrying heavy sling loads and there was a doozey sitting there. The 101st had rigged up an old M114 armored personnel carrier with cables which a crew in training could hook onto and fly around with. It was a big load which was quite heavy. At that particular point in time our unit was flying an odd assortment of Chinooks. The Army had cobbled together several modified CH-47C Chinooks, but added all sorts of miss-matched parts to improve performance, albeit at the cost of longevity. Our company of around 16 Chinooks was constantly wearing out airframes and requiring new aircraft. As a consequence, we had quite a few of the newer unmodified CH-47D’s and some of those were also being modified in various places around the country while we tried to figure out what a heavy lift Special Operations helicopter was going to look like.
Eddie and I arrived at LZ Golden Eagle, landing beside the M114 which was sitting in a field of shoulder high weeds. Lowering the ramp, the flight engineer scrambled off to check out the load rigging and prepare it for us to lift. I busied myself with the various performance calculations to determine if we actually had the power to lift the load. The numbers came in close, but we could do it. We would only be in danger for a short time immediately after takeoff and prior to landing where we would not have single engine capability. All that meant was that if the engines so much as hiccupped during those times, myself, Eddie, or the crew chief watching the load would quickly create some very expensive air mail.
I briefed procedure to Eddie’s satisfaction and we hovered over the load for a short time while the crew hooked it up. This is a very nervous and high concentration time. The pilot is maneuvering a 50,000 pound aircraft which is effectively 100 feet long making very small movements in response to the crew chief’s directives. “down two, right one, hold what you got, your drifting right, come back left two, hold your up, you’re centered over the load, hold your drift, hold position, clevis is in hand, clevis is on the hook, you are cleared to come up, bring it straight up fifteen, ten, five, four, three, two, one, slings coming tight, slings tight, bring it up ten.”
All of that is very intense. When the guys are calling that load they have a 100+ pound sling in their hands. They are hanging out of a hole in the belly and any sudden move in your part will immediately cause a heinous injury to them. Then after the load is all hooked up and as you bring it up, you can take a breath because they are out of harm’s way for the most part. When the slings come tight the Chinook magic starts to happen. That darned thing comes to life and shows the world why it is such a magnificent aircraft. Now you have 8 tons coming to bear on the airframe and those engines and rotor blades. A Chinook hovers at about 40% of its available power. The Hueys and scout helicopters hovered in the 80% range! This CH-47 was one powerful machine. Increasing power the engines started to roar as the gas producer section spun way up to produce all the extra power. Coming out of the back of those motors was a spectacle of surging hot gasses, fire, sparks, burned vegetation and small animal parts. Viewing it through the night vision goggles, it looks like a small crack had opened to the interior workings of the molten planet’s core.
The thing was that the aircraft could actually do it. We were hovering at some eighty feet not moving, just hovering with 16,000+ pounds of cargo hanging from our belly. H O O A H! that is a cool feeling! I did a takeoff check and pushed the cyclic forward. The giant beast tilted nose down and crept forward and almost instantly started to accelerate rapidly. In seconds I was a 70 knots indicated. We weren’t going to climb, but fly a low level route. So with the load flying maybe twenty feet above the trees, we left the cargo hook in the armed position just in case the engine quit or exploded as they sometimes do and we flew away across the reservation.
Had we been paying attention we might have noticed that the 101st was also playing that night. They were out on a FTX (field training exercise) in about the same place we were. At one point along our route they had also set up a headquarters section replete with all the stuff headquarters sections need, like communications. Now when you are sitting under a bunch of trees you can try to transmit through all those trees which doesn’t always work, or just stick up an antenna. This headquarters section being just like every other one that has ever existed chose option number two. At that time the Army was integrating a new quick erecting radio mast called a 292 (Two niner two) antenna. To make sure no aircraft flew into the thing they had affixed some green chem. Lights to the parts that stuck above the trees. The thing about green chem. Lights is that although they are very visible to the naked eye, they are completely invisible when viewed through Night Vision Goggles.
Some folks on the ground heard our mighty Chinook approaching so were looking up as you would expect when we smashed into the tower, raining tower parts all over the ground. From inside the aircraft I felt nothing at all. The flight engineer, a seasoned sergeant said over the intercom, “I just saw sparks coming off the load.” “Sparks, what’s up with that Eddie?” I moved my pinky over the cargo hook release switch not knowing what was going on. In his soothing southern voice, he said, “It’s just the clevis moving around on the hook up points, happens all the time.” Eddie always had the right answer! As the ground fell away, I dove forward down a ravine as we continued on our training flight.
The rest of the night went pretty well. Eddie made me do several approaches and landings with the load, then pick it back up and accelerate back to forward flight. Satisfied that he had accomplished the training objectives, we set the load back into LZ Golden Eagle and flew back to the airfield, parked and shut the thing down. There seemed to be a lot of helicopters flying all over to the south west, seemingly combing the forests there, probably just some 101st field training thing. I gathered up the goggles, my helmet, vest and other junk and headed off to operations to turn it all in. We walked into a beehive of activity. Standing at the counter, I handed the goggles over while a specialist grabbed them then went back to what seemed like an important phone call. Something was up so I asked. Mostly the guys would just tell me it was none of my concern and not answer, but the specialist covered the mouth piece and said “A Chinook is down!”
Holy crap a Chinook has crashed, wow, that’s terrible I thought! “Where?” I inquired. He stabbed a finger at the map then made a circle gesture. Looking at Eddie who was showing grave concern I said “Heck man, that’s where we were!” He said “yea” slowly while rubbing across his chin with his free hand.
“What happened?” I continued. The phone call had ended so the specialist gave us the run down. A Chinook ran into a tower about here and was seen going down about here. “Dam Eddie, wasn’t that where we were?” “You were there?” asked the specialist as suddenly everyone in operations started to look toward us stopping what they were doing. I heard the Captain say, “Hold on, I think we know something,” as he covered the mouthpiece. “Exactly when were you there, and what were you doing?” Eddie was rubbing his chin a little faster and starting to look up and around. “Sir, about 2200, we were carrying that M114 sling load,” I responded. The sergeants were now standing there also and Williams slapped his forehead and looked at Eddie then me. I hadn’t figured out what was going on, but everyone else was starting to.
“Sparks,” Williams said, “I saw the sparks.” Captain bellows asked, “Sparks?” Williams now with his head turned away from Eddie and I in disgust and peering out a window which was actually painted black to prevent exactly that. “We did it, we knocked down the Freaking tower. New guy here flew right in to it and knocked it down, that’s where the sparks came from. I bet if you go out to that sling load, you’ll find antenna parts sticking in it.” Captain Bellows looked at Eddie who had stopped rubbing his chin and was slowly nodding up and down. Bellows walked back to his desk, picked up the dormant phone and said, “Sir, it looks like it was one of our birds. No sir, no one is injured. No sir the aircraft is OK. Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, I will, I apologize, OK, sir I will.” Looking at us with a beet red face, he told us to go the the hospital and give blood and urine samples. We had just been involved in an aircraft accident and an investigation would be ensuing.
“Whew, Eddie, is this how Night Stalker training goes?” It was not the correct thing to have said. At that moment I was reminded that I was a lowly CW2, where as Eddie was a veteran CW4 used to biting the heads off rusty nails and inquisitive CW2’s. It was not a good night!

KensAuto:
Quote:
Originally Posted by D********
"Great read... Next chapter? "



Not chapter, but story. here it is:

Finally out of training it wasn’t long before I started flying actual missions as a BMQ (basic mission qualified) co-pilot. Eager to get me on the schedule more to give relief to some of his pilots who were being over worked, than to give me actual experience I would fly a ten day training support mission in Florida for some of our Navy friends. They trained all the time the same as we did and had a team wanting to play in the Eglin Air Force Base ranges.

I would be flying with an experienced crew in a new CH-47D Chinook under the command of a Vietnam veteran, a CW4. I have to switch up the names so I’ll try to find suitable ones, however you guys actually in these stories know who you were. OK, so let’s call this guy “Bill.” To the real you, I hope you approve, and I do this out of respect for your privacy.

Bill had been in the 160th since the day it formed from a single CH-47 company in the 101st. I believe at that time we were still technically a part of the 101st Airborne as we were yet to be assigned to and come under the direct command of 1st SOCOM, or First Special Operations Command. In my earliest days in the 160th we sewed 101st screaming eagle patches to the left shoulder of our dress greens and maybe our BDU’s (Battle dress uniform) but to be honest changes were coming fast and I am not 100% sure of that.
Anyway A company of the 159th Aviation Regiment kept its name from the days it was created in Vietnam, the “Pachyderms.” I’m sure about that, because someone way back then had some Vietnamese carve a pachyderm head bust out of a chunk of very dense and heavy teak wood. That sculpture adorned the desk of the company commander of the pachyderms and on occasion would actually be hand carried on the morning PT three to four mile runs. Ask me how I know about that!

Outside the door of the barracks building where the company also had its headquarters offices was a woven rubber welcome mat that didn’t say “welcome”. On it instead was emblazoned the phrase “Pachyderms, tougher than woodpecker lips!” That simple phrase often haunted me. I realized wood peckers don’t actually have lips, but I used to speculate about just how hard their beaks might be. Then I’d get to thinking if it was possible for a wood pecker to suffer from a concussion from all that pecking? That led me to think about how their brains might actually be suspended within their skulls? Perhaps by elastic chords, or in a vicious liquid, I mean how exactly did all that work? Weird, but I’m thinking about it right now!

OK, back to the mission, navy guys, training, OK, here we go. We were to meet up with this team of navy surfer dudes at Hulbert field, home of Air Force Special Operations. It is located along the scenic Florida coast right beside Destin and Panama city. I was going to have some fun finally. I was dreaming of flying, and getting some beach time in, it was going to be good!

We packed up early one morning into our Chinook which was fitted with two 600 gallon internal fuel tanks. With all that gas, we would be able to take off from Ft. Campbell and fly all the way to Florida, nonstop. We did so during the morning and into the early afternoon cruising across the US of A at 300 to 500 feet along a predetermined route which we followed exactly.

Arriving there we parked the aircraft on the hazardous cargo ramp at Hulbert, found our Buick Regal rental car, packed up our personal belongings and headed off to the hotel. Operations had reserved us rooms at the Howard Johnsons, or Ho-Jo’s. As we carried our bags inside I noted Bill as having two duffle bags instead of my single bag. I nodded toward the heavier and bulkier second bag and Bill said “It’s my “B” bag.” Oh, B-bag hugh, I hadn’t brought any B, C or D or any other letter bag. I guess I missed that one during training. “Bill, what’s a “B” bag?” “Tell me you didn’t bring one? You don’t have it with you? What if we get deployed from here? Dammed new guys!” Hmmm seemed I hadn’t learned my lesson yet, note to self: Do not speak until having first been spoken to!
We checked in, Bill and I got single rooms, but the two crew chiefs were rooming together. They dumped their bags and disappeared. Bill told me to come to his room after I settled in. I assumed it was for the butt chewing to continue, and I was correct.
The room was cheesy, sorry, Mr. Ho-Jo. I stuffed my clothing into some drawers and in the closet and went next door and knocked. “Enter” so I did.

Bill was dressed in what I would describe as a black Ninja suit! I was a bit surprised, not knowing what to think of these Night Stalkers yet, a group which I considered myself a part of only by the thinnest of threads. “B” bag, it’s what you need if we get deployed to go to war. You carry it with you whenever you go somewhere. Has your weapon, ammo, uniforms, stuff like that.” “Weapon? I asked. Surely I shouldn’t have missed that, I was supposed to bring a weapon? “You don’t have a weapon?” “Err, no, no one told me.” “No one told you that you are supposed to buy your weapons and carry them with you?” “Err, no, I have to buy a weapon, what kind?” Bill flipped open the bag and handed me both halves of a Car-15 assault rifle which I stared at dumbfounded. “And one of these,” he dug a little deeper and pulled out a modified .45 automatic pistol. To my mounting surprise I watched him pull out a drop leg holster, put it on and drop the .45 into it. He then picked up the Car-15 which I had laid on the bed and fitted it together snapping the two pins home. He threw the weapon over his shoulder and adjusted it to cross to one side with the muzzle down and the butt stock sticking out beside his ear.

These night stalker dudes are one weird lot, I was thinking as he donned a black hood. Yep, ninja, that’s the look he was going for. OK, for those of you who think this is a fantastic fabrication, well only the second part of that statement is true. This all really happened. Think that’s it? Sorry to disappoint, but this story gets better!

Bill moves over to the window of his second story room at the smallish balcony and railing. My face must have been twisted up in one of those “what the heck” expressions as he slowly opened the sliding door. I noted it opened with a rump-rump-rump sound. One of the rollers must have had a flat spot. I watched with utter fascination as he moved out into the early evening light and peered over the aluminum railing. “They’re next door.” “What, who is next door” I inquired somewhat dumbfounded by this unfolding scene. Bill jumped up and over the railing and clung to the outside, with the weapon swinging outward. At that exact moment, as I moved over to lean on the railing, I watched an elderly gentleman in a huge Cadillac pull into the parking spot one floor below where Bill was hanging. I could see that the gentleman was looking up through his windshield at the ninja hanging on the side of the building. I saw him place the gear shift back into reverse and watched him back out and leave. Good move I thought.

“Go knock on their door.” I focused back to the crazy conversation Bill and I was having. “The crew chiefs, they are rooming next door. Knock on the door, and when they answer it, I’ll come in from the balcony.” What, are you serious, you want to attack the crew chiefs?” “Not attack them, just give them a good scare.”

Since I was a new guy and no one felt compelled to talk to new guys, of course no one had briefed me on the antics of brother Bill here. But I would later learn plenty. I later found out that he often did this and on one occasion had interrupted a crew chief and a local girl in the middle of the throws of passion! But this was now, I didn’t know, so I just went along with it. “OK, give me a second” I said as I left.

I gave it about a three count and began knocking. The voice inside asked “Who is it?” “It’s Harward” A moment later the door started to open then I heard a crash and Bill screaming “Down on the floor, get on your face, N O W!” I watched the spectacle. The sergeant at the door was on his face in the entryway to his room as commanded. The other sergeant a more senior staff sergeant was laying flat on the bed with a huge bottle of Jack Daniels resting on his chest, thumb covering the mouth of the bottle. Bill stood over him all ninja’d up pointing that Car-15 carbine at the staff sergeants face. Both sergeants were saying don’t shoot sir, don’t shoot. What I thought was a gag carried a bit too far was actually much more. Bill a veteran from Vietnam with some baggage from that war would lapse into his Huey Cav days back in “the Nam” on occasion and had everyone pretty nervous. Would this the time he might lose it and drill these gooks, err that’s right, crew chiefs full of holes by mistake? That was one of those surreal moments in my early life as a night stalker. These guys were actually really crazy, it wasn’t just rumor!

The next couple days we were supposed to support the surfer dudes doing whatever they wanted. The first morning when we drove back out to the hot cargo pad to meet them, Bill says watch this. He is driving. The crew chiefs are in the back seat and I am in the front, right side. Bill guns it and yanks the steering wheel setting up a power slide on the grass covered white sand. The surfer dudes were standing all alongside the Chinook and are watching our approach. Bill slides the Buick up to about 50 feet from where they are standing, throws open his door and rolls out on the ground opposite of the car from them. The crew chiefs actually looked scared and I just watched in amazement yet again. Bill comes up from behind the left fender with his hands raised as if he is holding a weapon. He makes mock recoil gestures as he goes from surfer dude to surfer dude. All the while this is happening they didn’t budge, not one flinch of any muscle. Hmmm cool customers, these surfer dudes. They still didn’t move at all as Bill walked up to one of them and shook his hand. All of them were wearing Oakley sunglasses just like all of us. No one else on that base wore Oakley’s so we secret agents weren’t all that secret in retrospect.

We made a critical mistake that day. We departed with half of their team, leaving the other half on the ground. I would learn later on,that, that was not a good choice, but hey I was new to these Night Stalkers and surfer dude communities.

The mission was to fly them at altitude over a drop zone and let them jump out of the back. We were up pretty high requiring me to wear an oxygen mask. We flew toward the drop coordinates and was looking at a pretty big thunder storm which appeared to be right over the DZ. Bill called the jump master up into the cockpit pointing out the thunderstorm. The surfer dude told us to fly to the coordinates, then turn the green light on and he and his team would go!
I was actually flying and I think that guy just told Ninja Joe here to fly into a thunder storm! You don’t have to be an officer, a college graduate, a pilot or anything else to know not to fly into thunder storms. It’s one of those things right up there with sticking your face in fire!You know what thunderstorms and hail do to your car sometimes? OK, well, it’s ten times worse on the airplane when flying into one of those things. “Bill you really want to go into that storm? We can’t do that, right?” “I’ve flown Chinooks for a long time, we’ll be OK!” “You sure, are you sure you want to do this?” “Two point five miles.” “What? I asked “”two point three miles, that’s how far to the drop point.” He flipped the red light on and In the mirror I could see the surfer dudes lining up at the back end. I was looking out the windscreen at an impossibly tall wall of violence right in front of us that I couldn’t see into a single foot.

Three, two, one, Wham! We were in and started to be slammed around by all the turbulence going on inside that vertical airborne volcano. “Point three, point two, point one, go, jump, jump jump,” Bill said as he flipped the green light one. Like one big fishing net full of tuna, then just sort of poured out the back end of our aircraft, then they were gone!

Get us out of here, he yelled now directing all his attention to me as a sergeant said, “Jumpers away, aft clear, ramp coming up” I’m sure he was worried about being thrown out the back end. I placed the aircraft in a standard rate left turn, now flying on instruments. In a quick minute (less than a New York minute) we popped out the side of that monstrosity. Bill said circle around. Let’s see if we can see them. Continuing left back toward hell, all I could see was a column of cloud extending from the ground upward a couple of million feet. “Anyone see anything?” Bill asked. “See what sir, a couple of our rotor blades or some of the fuselage that got ripped off?”

“Very funny guys, one four one.” “What, are you talking to me.” I asked as I finished thanking the Lord for just saving my life. “Turn to one four one degrees, your heading back to Hulbert field” Bill said, let’s go back and get the second group. Eglin approach Army copter 2-4-3-4-1 is a single Chinook one four thousand, twenty miles north west inbound for landing Hulbert.” Taking a moment to turn around and look aft, I immediately saw the staff sergeant standing in the narrow companionway and staring at me. We locked eyes for a second. He shook his head side to side and nodded toward Bill. He wasn’t a happy camper. Ditto, neither was I, although being new to the game I was ignorant to the fact that I had been in serious danger. Contrarily, these guys had been living with it for some time.

We flared on the runway near the end and landed. Using a ground taxi minimizes the super strong rotor blast the Chinook produces. We taxied back to the hot cargo pad and shut down. Only one of the surfer dudes was standing there. I overheard the conversation between him and Bill. It seems the team we let off in the middle of that thunder storm had been scattered all over hell and back and had lost most of their equipment. They were not injured, but the guys who had been here had rushed off to try to find and pick them up. That would be it for us for the day’s flying.

After helping the crew chiefs tie down and service the aircraft we grabbed our day bags, mine still containing a sandwich I had made from the breakfast layout, and headed toward the parking lot where the Buick was.

Remember I had mentioned why you never leave your car unattended with half a team of Navy surfer dudes standing around? What we walked up on was not exactly what I’d call a car. Well it was a car in pure terms of mass, weight, approximate shape and the ability to transport people, but only barely. They had jumped up and down on the roof until it was all caved in. They had also smashed in the trunk lid, which no longer worked and the hood. All three depressions were holding water from a thunderstorm which had passed overhead there earlier. The hub caps were kicked in and the grill was missing, we later found that.

Peering inside we discovered that everything that could be quickly removed, had been. We found out later that all those things like door handles, switches, radio, lights and yes, the grill were buried. Buried you ask? Ah yes, after final disassembly of the interior and parts of the exterior, they had placed all the parts inside of the car. Then they had filled the front and back seats of the car about 1/3 of the way up with popcorn!

While taking inventory of the totaled wreck of our rental car, we noticed a few of the surfer dudes standing nearby. All of them were motionless but had the same silly smile which the Oakley’s only partially masked. Not to be beaten, Bill tried to unlock and open the door. That was difficult since the door handles were gone, so one of the sergeants using a screwdriver, wiggled the mechanisms inside the holes where the door handles used to be and got all four doors open. Without saying a word or acknowledging the wreckage at all, Bill climbed in crunching down heavily on the pop corn as he wiggled, or rather burrowed down into the cornels and looked around for the ignition switch. It was hanging out of it’s hole by the wires. Using the skill of a master thief, by holding the cylinder with one hand, he got the key in and cranked the car, which started! Ah, cool, I thought, they left us the engine. While I brushed some corn off the seat and sat in the front seat, my knees came up to about chin height. The popcorn was preventing me from lowering my legs. A couple of Air Force airmen walked by just about then, both starring at the wreckage and at us. One said, “Nice car!” then the other, “Clown car, Barnum and Bailey circus must be in town.”

We all squeezed into the car and Bill drove off, all without saying a word or looking anywhere except for straight forward. We scored big points with the surfer dudes who thought it was cool that we had kept our cool through that little ordeal and had never said a single word about it.

After getting back to the hotel, we went to work removing the pop corn and reinstalling most of the parts. The crew chiefs, thought, that the grill ought to remain in our possession as a trophy and in memory of the event. Bill thought about turning in the car to get a new one, but since we had pushed the roof out far enough to actually use the thing for transportation, we did, He and the Sergeants decided to turn in the car as the last thing we did. That’s what we did a week or so later. By the time we landed back at Campbell, National rental car company had already called reporting that our rental car had been vandalized and was totaled. Captain Bellows wanted to talk about that as well. All in all, a single rental car is not too bad of a price to pay for some good joint Army/surfer dude training wouldn’t you say?

KensAuto:
Several of the random posts in this build thread are associated with Don's (published) book "Distant Thunder", and some of his posts are from material he may use in a future book. The following is just one of many positive reviews he received from his fellow interweb friends, better known as DOTS (derailleurs of threads).

This was written by STLASER:
Don, you asked for it so here is my review after sleeping on it for a couple of days.

OK, so I finished Don's first book last weekend. Note: that this is the first book I have started and actually finished (could not put down btw) in the last eight years. As with all of his writing the book was extremely well written and read like us normal gear head types actually converse in a shop type setting. Do not take that statement lightly nor any offense as there was plenty of job specific lingoes & various terminologies that kept me on my toes throughout. This in my opinion was the best part of the book. That being regardless of his larger than life job and career he definitely put the hooks into the average reader so that you desire to know more and more. Which is what any good author should do for a reader and that is to actually tug you thru from one point to the next. I would go as far to say that by the end of his first book you will end up feeling like you were in the jump seat behind him. It really is that well written in my opinion.

Now in order to do my job and be thorough I must also address the negative side of purchasing and reading any of Don's works. My ongoing prevalent thought while reading this book was that I end up with more questions about him than I had prior to reading. But then again if you try to form a friendship with Don the same can be said about him on a personal basis as well. Regardless & as frustrating as it can be, my viewpoint is that for whatever reason it happens it flat out works for him and those of us who are able to experience it in the end are better because of it at least on a personal basis. Regarding his writing I believe it will lead him to selling a lot of books, which as a result will benefit exponentially that many more people. Unless you know him, this last sentence probably did not make alot of sense for that I am sorry.

Oh, and if you’re on a budget forego purchasing this book because I can guarantee it will be habit forming. Seriously, you think he bought two hundred of his own book for nothing? You think he gives us little blurbs of his next book on this thread for no reason? You are all fools; the guy is a master marketing genius. The guy is the like the local crack dealer, give you a taste and you will be back for more. Sorry, if this last part was offending I just shot from the hip Don!  Great Book, God Bless.

KensAuto:
Posted by Higher caliber to Don:

Found this the other day and thought you would appreciate it.


Wasn't yours was it?

I wasn't a dustoff guy, but I know of one
Dustoff 35 is a regular reader here but chooses to remain in the background. Considering that catfish lookin blackhawk he flew, I can't blame him. I'd be ashamed too!......

Quote:
Originally Posted by Higher Caliber
"I just saw "helicopter"... You know us play it dumb infantryman... I got it from my bro-in law. He was a medevac guy. His last assignment at Fort Rucker was OIC over an air ambulance unit there. I never realized they flew out for civilians as well! I'm not sure if I had just got ate up in a car wreck if I'd want to see a Vietnam era huey coming for me... unless of course it was playing some CCR over a PA system, and there was a guy hanging out the door with cut off fatigues and a head band sporting a 240. I'd prolly just as soon take the *ground* ambulance."

You know, when the last space age helicopter is put to rest at the bone yard, the flight crew will be picked up and flown to the airport in a Huey!......

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dustoff 35
"Big Don,

There you go, trash-talking the "Mighty Sikorsky Blackhawk" again... Not good, my friend...

Particularly when one considers your preferred method of rotary-winged-transportation; the Chinook?"

I rest my case:



Where as The chinook is obviously a creation of beauty. Notice the striking similarities! The graceful lines! The understated sophistication! The commanding presence! The not so subtle timeless beauty!

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