This from one of our company pilots from Vietnam. He purchased
66-09961 and refurbished it. After 47 years, it is still saving lives. Note the trees in the park. Not a problem for a "Nam pilot.Andy
We all know what happened late Friday afternoon.
I was near our helicopter and watched the warbirds take off for their heat. Except for when they pass in front of you, the race is kind of slow. I was looking at a Navy Douglas A-4 Skyhawk when the Mustang impacted about 300 yards away. I looked up not knowing what happened and saw the debris field spreading across the ramp. I didn't realize it had impacted in a populated area and I stayed in our area as most people did. I could smell 100 octane a few minutes later. None of us knew how extensive it was. After about 20 minutes or so, the owners and our ground support crew started putting on the ground handling wheels and getting the bird ready to wheel out of the display area. I thought, you got to be kidding, what the hell are we going to do. When someone said mass casualties, I understood. Some official mucky muck had requested us. The aircraft was rolled out of the display area, fuel added (the FBO wanted the credit card first), two jump seats removed, the bench seats folded up. We cranked up and hovered over to just outside the debris field. Two stretcher cases and two ambulatory patients were loaded. During this time I'm trying to figure out where are we going to land with these people. Ray and I don't know where the hospitals are or which one we're suppose to go to (turned out to be Renown Hospital). A guy who assisted loading the patients ended up behind our seats and said he knew where to go, so we took him along. While we sat with rotors turning, waiting for the patients to be loaded, a medical A-Star helicopter landed next to us. We departed first and headed for Reno. Ray was handling the radios and I was flying. Pretty soon the A-Star is passing us on the right, so I kept him in sight and followed him to Renown. He took the helipad so we landed in a park next to the hospital where these attached pictures and video were taken. I'm seated and Ray is outside the aircraft in a VHPA T-shirt assisting the patients. We hauled ass back to Stead expecting to fly another load, but were told that's it. We shut down and the aircraft was rolled back inside the static display area.
The event was canceled and we were told don't come out Saturday, you can depart Sunday. I left Reno Saturday morning and drove back to Bend. The two Huey owners paid for our patients flight. I wonder how much the A-Star team cost.
Tim Horrell