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Naperville
Saturday, February 15, 2025

The Way I see it – Full Power! (Part 2)

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Editor’s Note: This story is Part 2 continued from July 2024. Read Part 1 HERE.

It was Mike’s turn to torment our shutterbug friend, and once in position, as before, I pulled back the throttles. As gravity did its thing and we screamed for the deck, Mike calmly ordered, “Full power.”

I pushed the throttles forward. Nothing happened. Perturbed, Mike now yelled, “Full Power!”

I yelled back, “I am Full Power!”

Mike’s muscle memory kicked in, and as he manipulated the cyclic and collective in perfect unison, he screamed out again, “Full POW…”

He never got the second syllable out. We hit with a tremendous thud. Our seats collapsed as designed, and we both sat there; dumbfounded. Mike glared at me and hissed, “I said full power.”

My left hand was still on the throttles, and they were both full forward. I thought that maybe I may have even bent them a little, as I had pushed them so far and so hard forward. About a second or two passed when we both looked at each other and came to the same revelation; we screamed over the internal radio, “Senor Chief! You Okay?!”
He replied crew chief calm, “I am, but the helo ain’t.”  

We quickly shut her down and unstrapped. We walked to the aft of the helo and could see daylight coming in from above – unfortunately the Sea King did not come equipped with a sun roof. We all disembarked and realized the rotors had slapped down and partially cut through the tail boom. The good news was no one was hurt. The bad: the helo was nearly cut in half!

As we walked up to the Army Ops Shack, an Army Warrant came out and greeted us. He could see the wounded Speargun on the runway behind us, and offered his keen insight, “That bird’s not flyable.” He quickly redeemed himself in my eyes, though, by offering us a beer. I was about to take it, when Mike reminded me that we would, in short order, be drug/alcohol tested, interviewed, questioned, second guessed and subjected to the Comfy Cushion Interrogation of a Naval Aviation Review Board. I told the Warrant I’d take a rain check. 

The first order of business was to call the Skipper and XO. But we knew that news from Zama to Atsugi flowed quickly, as everyone knew everyone’s business in those isolated base housing environments. The rat line would be humming soon.

Mike and I agreed to break protocol and call our wives first. As soon as Renae answered the phone, I gave her a quick rundown of the mishap. Then conspiratorially, I instructed her to act surprised when the CO’s wife called her with the news. Renae was silent for a few seconds, then asked, “Are we still going to the Navy Ball tonight at the O Club?” Her response reminded me of yet another reason I married her – she’s rarely rattled! 

The next calls were not as pleasant. However, a week later, we were both exonerated after Sikorsky admitted to having a “catastrophic transmission malfunction” problem that they were “aggressively addressing it.” We were back in the cockpit 12 days later.

As for the photographer, the last time I saw him, he had set up his cameras about 40 feet from our broken helo, snapping away at his heart’s content.

Lesson learned.

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P. Araya
P. Araya
Pablo Araya grew up in Naperville and enjoys writing about his experiences in the Navy, the FBI and growing up in the best town around. Contact Pablo at boblow9913@gmail.com.
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