Reading Chuck Johnson’s remembrance of the way Rollo Langenfeld let copilots try some of the hard stuff, I remembered a night mission. Can’t remember if we were bringing ammo, retrieving wounded, or what, but the young, inexperienced copilot was flying into the LZ on a dark night, in the hills and jungle. The closer we got, the slower he got; finally, he attempted to pull too much pitch and the blades went into blade stall. Worst sound I ever heard. The next sound was “I’ve got it.” Guess who?

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