life expectancy of heli pilot in vietnam

[muamshai]

what was the life expectancy of heli pilot in Vietnam? I tried to find it so I stumbled upon this source:

 

Approximately 40,000 US Helicopter Pilots flew in the Vietnam War. Approximately 2,202 pilots were killed, along with 2,704 crewmen. For those with their hands on the joystick that means 5.5% never made it back. Considering that the average pilot flew 4 times a week, he could expect that during his tour in Vietnam he was flying up against the Grim Reaper on 11.4 of his flights. That means that every 4.5 weeks he faced death. In soldier talk, his life expectancy was 4 and a half weeks... basically, a month.

 

source: http://www.armysignalocs.com/veteranssalultes/67_04_fletcher_donald.html

 

was it this really that less? :eek:

[hassata]

I think door gunners had it worse.

[badger66]

A mate of mine was a door gunner in Nam for a year ..... he managed ok , shot his own tail boom in a UH-1C ..... what the only A/C in the company to have 3 yellow tape x's in the tail boom ..... that's when they used bungee cords for the M60 . Flight time a lot more than 4 times a few too ..... he was based outta Bien Hoa with the 196AHC ..... Sparten's & Gladiator's , in 66 or 67 I think .

Edited May 14, 2013 by badger66

[dave4002000]

shot his own tail boom in a UH-1C .

 

Oh man, i can only imagine the crap he got about that when he got back to base. Both from the CO and his fellow pilots..lol

 

One of the documentaries i've watched stated that a heli pilot in Vietnam was twice as likely to die as a normal infantryman on the ground. I don't know if that's an embellished fact for the show, or not. But either way, those are some pretty tough odds.

Edited May 14, 2013 by dave4002000
grammar

[Yurgon]

It sounds plausible. I mean, think of it: there was practically no armor on the helis, they often removed the doors, flew low level, inserted troops in hot LZs, risked landing on booby traps in the high grass, and then there's the extraordinary amount of non-combat related failures and accidents to be expected with such an amount of flights generated over the course of several years. And let's not forget that most choppers featured a single engine at the time.

 

Yet another factor would be the long, tiring days and the resulting fatigue. When I read "Low Level Hell", I was amazed just how long these guys sat in the cockpit on any given day. Having your crew chief shot or even having the crew chief fly back home when the pilot got shot seemed to be happening rather often. And the amount of choppers some pilots would crash, just to return to the middle of a firefight with a new chopper as soon as possible, is pretty much unbelievable.

 

Very interesting: Vietnam The Way It Was

 

Those were different times, that's for sure.