The Joy of Flight: Slipping the Surly Bonds

This is not simply a story about flying in Vietnam; there are enough of those. It is a love story about flying. The Joy of Flight highlights Captain Gary Wilson’s experiences flying for the US Army from September 1967 through July 1971. His adventures take you from flight training to Vietnam, where he flew for one year in a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog, logging 1309 total combat hours, 324 of them at night.

From Vietnam, it's off to Alaska, where Captain Wilson flew the U-1A De Havilland Otter, the U-21A Ute twin turboprop, and the O-1 Bird Dog. Flying in Alaska truly is a different experience. Weather, terrain, extreme temperatures, 24-hour periods of daylight or darkness, vast areas without radar or radio coverage, and rough, rugged airstrips make Alaska a uniquely challenging and rewarding place to fly.

From Alaska, Captain Wilson went to Fort Rucker, Alabama, for Rotary-Wing Transition, where he learned to fly helicopters. It was there he fell in love with the UH-1 Huey. A fixed-wing aircraft is flown from the left seat, but a helicopter is flown from the right seat. When you settle into the Huey’s cockpit, it feels like you are wrapped in a warm embrace. It’s like a love affair to feel the thumping of the rotors lift you gently up in the air, float you smoothly over one spot, or take you anywhere you want to go. The two become one. The sound of a Huey is like no other, and once you hear it, it will forever be etched in your brain.

Flying a helicopter is one of the most beautiful, inspiring, and glorious things a man can experience. It is like an art form. Helicopter pilots fly their aircraft like a hummingbird controls the air that surrounds it. They move along the landscape, following the contours like eagles gliding on air currents, rising effortlessly to clear trees, banking, climbing, and descending like swifts after their prey. Their hands and feet on the controls move with the delicacy of coordination of Chet Atkins’ or Earl Klugh’s sure and seemingly effortless hands on their guitars, moving as one with their rotary steeds.

In four years of Army aviation, Captain Wilson flew 2,155 hours and saw and experienced many extraordinary things that mere land-bound mortals have never witnessed. His experiences encompass flying in the tropics and the extreme cold of arctic winters in single-engine and multi-engine airplanes—airplanes with tricycle gear, airplanes with tail wheels, and helicopters.

It doesn’t matter if the sky is blue, gray, or black; the aerodynamic forces are in control, yielding only to thrust and lift to counter drag and weight. The sound of the engine becomes a constant and welcome music. The aircraft responds majestically to the pilot’s control. There is a certain magic in the flight of any aircraft. It is felt, imagined, and experienced at a deeper level than any other; then, it is captured in the treasury of the pilot’s memory bank.