Touchdown Autorotation?

Company A

227th Assault Helicopter Battalion

1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

Touchdown Auto?
Well, almost!
by "FNG" WO-1 John L. Keller, 1st Flt Plt, A/227

I had just arrived at A Company the day before and here was my first flight in a UH-1D on 24 April, 1966. I could not believe how tall the cabin deck was off the ground compared to the UH-1 A & B Models I had previously flown. I had joined the First Flight Platoon and met everyone the day before, so now it was time to fly with CW-2 John C. "Jake" Cogburn. As grumpy as he sounded, I thought he was going to chew my head off! He usually had a cigar in his mouth either lit or just chewing on it. He had earned his "stripes" as a First Cavalry Division Sergeant in Korea. He and I were assigned to fly 63-08847 for an orientation flight around the area and then some autorotation practice at the area west of POL on the southwest side of the Golf Course.
It had been almost six weeks since I had done a touchdown auto at Fort Rucker, but I figured that with a 48 foot rotor system it had to be easier than the "A" or "B." Jake had me perform one autorotation to a power-recovery to see what my techniques were. Since he was pleased with my skills, he requested that I plan to do a “zero ground run” autorotation to the middle of the selected area.
The POL area was to the east of the touchdown area and the departing aircraft were to proceed south and then continue straight or turn left or right as necessary. As we turned onto final for the touchdown area, Jake surprised me by rolling the throttle OFF and calling, "engine failure." This all happened a little earlier than I had planned, so I figured I would stretch my glide a little bit. Pulling collective and increasing the indicated by 10 knots was going to work out just right. We were descending and would have no problem making the touchdown spot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving directly toward us from left to right. I was waiting for the big BANG that was going to occur, but Jake had hauled back on the cyclic and stood the UH-1D on its tail to avert a mid-air collision.
He started swearing and cussing and made a power recovery while stating,"That SOB wasn’t supposed to come out of POL that way!" After the power recovery, he said, "I'm going after that SOB and kill him!" Hey, I was just along for the ride at that point. Jake chased that "SOB" back to The Golf Course while doing about 110 knots at less than 100 feet AGL. Then, he realized it was one our Company birds heading into parking. As it set down near the maintenance tent, Jake "slammed" 847 down on the pad and told me, "Here, you take the controls, because I'm going to kill him!" Well, it was CW-3 Sam Fant (Ass't Maintenance Officer) flying a maintenance test hop who almost wiped out two Company birds. Jake and Sam were really good friends, but Jake was still fighting mad! That ended our training for the day and Jake and I had a really good drink of Scotch at the First Flight Platoon "hooch."
The next day, we finally completed the touchdown autos! My tour was starting off with a "black cloud." I just hoped the rest of my 350+ days was NOT going to be like the first few.