On January 7, 1967, John Steinbeck was in Pleiku, where he boarded a UH-1 Huey helicopter with D Troop, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry. He wrote the following about the helicopter pilots:
“I wish I could tell you about these pilots. They make me sick with envy. They ride their vehicles the way a man controls a fine, well-trained quarter horse. They weave along stream beds, rise like swallows to clear trees, they turn and twist and dip like swifts in the evening. I watch their hands and feet on the controls, the delicacy of the coordination reminds me of the sure and seeming slow hands of (Pablo) Casals on the cello. They are truly musicians’ hands and they play their controls like music and they dance them like ballerinas and they make me jealous because I want so much to do it. Remember your child night dream of perfect flight free and wonderful? It’s like that, and sadly I know I never can. My hands are too old and forgetful to take orders from the command center, which speaks of updrafts and side winds, of drift and shift, or ground fire indicated by a tiny puff or flash, or a hit and all these commands must be obeyed by the musicians hands instantly and automatically. I must take my longing out in admiration and the joy of seeing it.
[ed. I've flown hundreds of hours in helicopters and while most pilots have been extremely competent, a few were exceptionally so (and I always requested them if I could). Man and machine perfectly in sync. For example, landing on a rocky outcropping barely larger than the vessel itself, blades a hands-length from sheer rock wall; "skiing" down a miles-long glacier, 10 ft. above the undulating ice surface, going a hundred miles and hour; half-landing on cliffs, with skids balanced and hanging on the edge, engine powered up to keep from tumbling over backwards (that one was close). Just the sheer joy of feeling like a bird (or a bumble bee). And seeing some of the most beautiful and remote country at variable altitudes and pace (like an ice field stretching from horizon to horizon). Never got complacent about the exhilaration of it all, and at times wondered (like Mr. Steinbeck) if it would be possible to learn myself. But it's not a cheap (or even relatively affordable) undertaking and most pilots I knew came up through the military.]
