I did a lot of trips to FAA sites when I was up there, and we sometimes flew with an ERA helicopter pilot that was in Vietnam. I remember him saying he was shot down on his first mission, but said he must have learned something from it as he made it the rest of his tour without getting shot down again. You could definitely tell who had military training, as on take off, they would barely get off the ground and they would pitch the nose down and you'd swear the blades of the rotor were going to hit the concrete. The ones civilian trained would raise up gently and slowly roll the nose down.
Bucket full of reasons for such behavior. The Huey grew up in Nam, starting with limited gross weight and power issues often complicated by very high density altitude. Just barely getting skids off the ground maximizes the lift generated in ground effect while transitioning to forward flight. Later on with introduction of the H model things got quite a bit better as you might imagine. 900 vs 1400 SHP makes a difference. At least until 9 grunts climb on when you landed on top of a 3,000’ mountain with temperatures in the near 100* range. So, what ya gonna do?
Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!
