"Letting Go of the Controls"

"Letting Go of the Controls"
Submitted by -1LT Robert Brewster, Headhunter 37, 3rd PLT Qui Nhon, Sep '70-Oct '71

It was April 23, 1971, in Happy Valley--a very dangerous mountainous area near the Mang Yang Pass. I was flying my O-1 on a regular recon mission without any specific target. This was an area I had flown over dozens of time in the past but on this day I saw a heavily used trail running along the valley floor near the tree line. The valley floor to the mountaintops in this area was probably 1,500 to 2,000 feet. As I followed this trail I banked first to the left then to the right while concentrating my full attention on the trail below. As the trail went up the mountainside so did I. Continuing to bank side to side I was also subconsciously applying more engine power to keep up my climb.  I was so absorbed in watching the trail below that I failed to hear the aircraft engine slowing. This was a fixed pitch propeller without any governor. The RPM was dropping and the noise level of air passing the windows was growing less and less. Suddenly, I realized that I was no longer climbing but actually slowly descending toward the jungle below. Stunned I saw my airspeed was almost at the red line for a stall. (I cannot remember but I think this was somewhere around 49 MPH indicated airspeed). Incredibly I was already at full power and was still settling downward. I was now hanging on the propeller!

There was no stretching my climb to get over the mountain top. I still had hundreds of feet remaining to the top. Within seconds of settling into the treetops, I heard a voice--the voice of my instructor from flight school telling me to “let go of the controls if you get in trouble flying because the airplane inherently wants to fly due to the pull of gravity.” That is exactly what I did! I let go of the stick and a miracle occurred. The Bird Dog started banking to the left from what I would later realize was the propeller forces called “P Factor” or the torque affect at very slow speeds for the propeller to turn the airplane in the opposite direction of the propeller’s rotation. 

In fractions of seconds my descent into the trees stopped. My slight banking turn to the left due to propeller torque combined with the down slope of the mountainside and the growing lift from my increasing airspeed as I descended all together worked to keep me from crashing. My landing gear dragged through some the tops of the tallest trees but I continued to accelerate to the point where I regained complete control and flew out of the valley. My heart was pounding so much so that even through my flak jacket and survival vest I could see my chest heaving in and out. Truthfully, I never feared dying but I truly feared getting captured. That scared me more than anything. For the next hour I tried to calm down and think about what had just happened. I climbed up to 8,000 feet and droned around in recovery thought. How could I have been so absorbed that I let myself get into such a critical situation? Yet, in spite of the danger or requirement for split-second thinking, I was able to respond and do the right thing. “Letting go of the controls” worked! What an airplane!What great training in flight school!!