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Where’s Bill
A Pilots Tale

Introduction:
“Where’s Bill ” is an afterthought. When I started this book, I was going to write about my experiences as a pilot, in particular, a helicopter pilot. As such, I named the book “Rotor Trash, A pilot’s tale” but I could not seem to keep from writing about all of the life experiences that led up to my becoming a pilot. But I couldn’t stop there; I wanted to talk about most all of my experiences. As I say latter on “at least all that I’m able to admit.” I have been traveling and growing all of my life and phrase “Where’s Bill” is very appropriate as you will see when you start tumbling through my story. Where I Am at any given moment, meaning, geographically, spiritually, mentally or anything like that, is anyone’s guess. I don’t have much experience writing, however I do tell a lot of stories about the adventures I have created. Sometimes someone will just bring up a subject, any subject, and I will know about it or have had some kind of exposure with it. It’s kind of like I’ve been there done that and got a T shirt. I have been known to spin a yarn of two in my time just for laughs but for the most part, this is a true account of my life up to now. (Now? Is there such a thing?) It will no doubt read like a fiction novel and it could be I suppose but as they say “Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.” Sometimes it even sounds phony to me but I assure you that’s not my intention. I will however, omit certain data that could be harmful to me or others, particularly those few that are closely entangled in my adventures. (Or Not)
I will be skipping around in “Time” as my Spirit leads me and as I try to “re-member” my life. What I mean is that I’ll be in the past sometimes and in the present at other times. Like I said, I don’t claim to be a writer but I will do the best I can. I think this endeavor will allow me to get a lot off my chest and I hope if any one reads this, you will find it entertaining. I’ve ask myself many times why I would even want to re-live all that garbage, except it’s not all garbage and besides that, it is what it is! (Unless it’s not!)
I want to dedicate this book to my Mother, who taught me that I was an immortal soul bestowed upon her by God him/her self. That I was special and could do anything that I could dream of. She said I had no limits as long as I kept God on my side and had faith in whatever I chose to do. She taught me to pray for guidance and to be thankful for all my blessings, even if it didn’t seem like a blessing at the time. She taught me to be humble and ask forgiveness when I made a bad choice and to forgive others no matter what that they did or how much they hurt me, and to be quick to ask forgiveness for anything I did that hurt or offended others and to bless them whether I thought they needed it or not. She taught me to read the Bible and take it with me where ever I went. Most of all, she taught me to Love as Jesus loved, without condition, always, and in all-ways, even unto death.
She taught me, but I failed her many, many times. It was HER faith that kept me alive long enough to find my own faith. It was HER courage and determination that gave me strength. I could have been a better Son, but I couldn’t have loved her more.
Thanks Mom

Last edited by Wild bill on August 12, 2009, 10:18 pm

The sun comes up around 5:30 and in spite of me trying to talk him out of it, my observer and I lurched off the deck about 6:00 am. I say, “Lurched” because Launched is just not sufficient to describe our departure. About this time I think to myself “Now you’ve done it! You have to come back and land on this thing.”
It didn’t take more than about 30 minutes to decide this was not a good idea so we returned to the ship. As I made my approach the bow of the boat disappeared under the water sending spray up over the helideck and then shot back up out of the water like it had been rejected and the ocean was spitting it out.
To make things worse we had about a 20 knot wind and the boat was full steam at about 12 knots so that ads up to about a 32 knot quartering cross wind I was making my approach into. That was good. More often than not, it was a tail wind, making landing even more difficult.
The helicopter has to sit on the boat sideways because of the small size of the helideck. Timing has to be perfect or the boat will fall out from under you or rise up suddenly and strike the landing gear perhaps causing damage to the helicopter or worse, causing me to lose control. With all the radio antennas and steel mast behind the deck, I was not about to let that happen.
As I position myself over the deck with full left pedal and full right cyclic trying to land on this floating roller coaster, I ask myself “Now just what was it you liked about flying?” Well I got it down ok and with a little squirming around on the pad, I got it right over the belly hook and happily a crewmember hooked me up and winched me down before I was catapulted back of the boat. Then came the 4 tie downs straps that secured the aircraft firmly to the deck. Now I relax a little.
As I am cooling the engine down I notice a strong wind coming our way. It comes out and away from squall lines and thunderstorms and can reach 50 or 60 miles per hour. You can see it on the water before it gets to the boat and that’s what I was looking at about two miles away. It was going to be tricky enough shutting down without the main rotor blades chopping off the tail boom as it is but in that wind I wouldn’t be able to shut down at all until it passed.
I got helicopter shut down and was trying to get the blades tied down when the wind hit. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been and only added about 25 mph to the wind speed but it was enough to make my new glasses go flying of my face and into the drink, or so I thought. Man! And I was just getting used to them. A few days later, I found my glasses stuck in the netting used to land on and they were pretty beat up but salvageable.
After some struggling with the tie downs and servicing the bird, it was back to my room where I would spend the rest of the day trying to keep from being thrown out of my bunk while reading a book I have been trying to finish. I past on lunch and had a cup of noodles instead. The weather stayed bad all day but at least we turned and run down wind for the rest of the day.
Dinner was about the same as every other day. Steamed rice, boiled cabbage, baked fish, fish head soup with seaweed and stewed chicken feet (I’m not kidding) and sushi (raw tuna). 24 little Chinese heads bobbing and chop sticks a clicking, we soon devoured the evening meal.