VIBRATIONS
GOOD
and strapped on a modern inert Dillon
M134 Minigun. Other than that, every-
thing else was period correct, including
the .50-caliber and M- 60 door guns, 2. 75
rocket pods, and assorted crew weapons
and ammo.”
With the Huey looking better than fac-
tory fresh, it was time for John to turn
this piece of historic treasure over to his
longtime pilot, Larry Clark.
FLYING THE HUEY
Pilot Larry Clark, founder of the Vietnam
Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA),
admitted he has an odd relationship with
Seawolf 324. The hard part for Larry was
adjusting to the Navy colors. Larry wore
all green when he served in the U.S. Army
and flew B models in Vietnam in 1965 and
1966. He logged more than 350 combat
missions, got shot at a lot, and was hit
quite a few times. Larry admitted that he
has a tinge of jealousy when he flies this
bird because he wishes he had this much
hardware hanging off his Army Hueys.
“I can vividly remember when I
was a 20-year-old kid, sitting in the right
seat, listening to the turbine engine
wind up, looking around at the guns
hanging off the rear doors, and the tubes
full of rockets. I was told I could go
out, empty everything I had, come
back and reload, and go again, and I
“IT’S OLD, SLOW,
SLUGGISH, AND WAY
UNDERPOWERED. IT GETS
ABOUT 1 MILE TO THE
GALLON AND BURNS 100
GALLONS PER HOUR.”
remember thinking, ‘And they’re going
to pay me for this, too?’ It was very excit-
ing for me.”
According to Larry, the Huey is very
stable in flight, and he feels it is an inher-
ently well-designed aircraft. The Huey
requires very little control motion
because the controls are hydraulically
boosted. That means if you turn loose on
the stick it will fall over and move on its
own with no friction; it’s very smooth.
There is no feedback; the stick doesn’t
jerk around as one might expect. For
Larry it feels like the Huey has a “super
power steering system.” “Just move the
stick and the aircraft follows you wher-
ever you want it to go. It is very fluid and
very easy to fly,” Larry claimed.
“Just because it was freshly restored
doesn’t mean it flies any smoother,” Larry
said, tongue in cheek. “Getting into this
one brought back a lot of memories, some
not so pleasant. It’s old, slow, sluggish,
and way underpowered. It gets about 1
SEAWOLF HISTORY
From early 1967 until March
1972, flight crews of Helicopter
Attack Squadron, Light, or HA(L)- 3,
operated in support of U.S. Navy
units in South Vietnam that
included the inland “Brown Water
Navy” and the SEALs. HA(L)- 3 consisted of nine detachments of two
helicopter gunships each. They
were stationed at various locations
in South Vietnam or on board barracks ships positioned in the larger
rivers of the Mekong Delta. During
the Seawolves’ first year, they fired
more than 13,761,000 rounds of
7. 62 mm ammo, 800,000 rounds of
.30- and .50-caliber ammo, and
more than 155,000 rockets.
“The Navy used to rely on the
Army Huey gunships for protection,
but I guess the Army got tired of
flying for the Navy. The Army ended
up loaning the Navy 30 to 35 ‘war
weary’ UH-1B models. By the time
the Navy repainted them and
rearmed them, the Seawolves
carved out a name for themselves in
the history books. The commanding
officer ordered that the word ‘Navy’
would be painted in white on the
tail boom so the people on the
ground knew who was shooting at
them from above!” Larry said.
