Art, you never took over the stick during climbout? I used to pester my pilots
constantly about getting up front - it was a running joke with them.

Interesting about the Norden, flying the plane. In the after rescue station on
the SH-3, we had a "Coolie Hat" controller in order to fly the helo over a
downed airman. At some point in the H-3s history, someone realized that the
pilots couldn't actually see straight down to hover over a survivor - even with
constant calls from the drycrewman, the hover usually 'wandered' a bit, making
recoveries more complicated. The solution was to give a small amount of
control, something on the order of 5-10 knots in any direction, usually with
quite a bit less, about 1-2 knots which is basically a drift) to the crewman in
the back. Pilots entered a steady hover using full instruments and visual
procedures and when they were comfortablely settled, they turned control over
to the kid in the back, who could motor around a bit. We discovered that the
pilots could give us a lot MORE speed, but naturally it was not their choice.
"No, its just barely moving." "But I turned it up?" "I don't know why - we're
just barely drifting. It'll take us forever to get - " "Ok, ok - try it now"
"Roger that."

yee Haaw.

I suppose gazing down through the rubber eyepiece of the Norden at an
approaching bridge would be somewhat less fun, and with quite a bit more
pucker.

v/r
Gordon