15. FORT RUCKER DEMONSTRATION

Following the demonstration at Forbes we  took the same aircraft to Fort Rucker, Alabama  to demonstrate  to the US ARMY.  Every thing was going well until we had a badly cracked engine combustion  housing. This was discovered following a morning flight. 

We had a spare engine with us (we had a spare parts truck along) but the built up engine we brought was configured for the wrong side.  There is no way we could know which side would fail, it can be converted, but it’s a lot of work.

Our problem was our company president, Don Berlin, was arriving at 10 PM and we were to pick him up at Dothan airport. We proceeded  to make the change  but not certain we could get it done in time. 

The Army guys were pulling our chain, they parked an old  Sikorski H-34 helicopter in front of the hangar and offered to pick up our president if we couldn’t get our 107 ready in time. That gave our guys a real incentive so it got ready and we made the pickup.

Don Berlin was there for two nights.  The 2^nd night we all gathered in one of our rooms at the new Daleville Inn and had a few drinks, maybe for some, more than a few. We had a night shift crew at the base so they were not a part of this.  Don turned out to be quite a party guy.

Our day shift crew normally went to the base about 6 AM. Tom Green and I started to go about 8 AM and noticed our day crew’s car was still there, they over slept.  We woke them and departed, only to find our night crew stayed over and the craft was ready to go. 

Our guys worked especially hard when on demonstrations, they really get with the program.  The demo went well but the Army did not buy the V-107.  We built 2 similar aircraft, the YHC-1A which led to the Chinook. 

Charles Kessler is a retired flight test engineer for Boeing’s Vertol helicopter division (formerly Piasecki Helicopter Co.). He joined Piesecki in 1947, in the company’s fourth year, and retired from Boeing in 1983. During his 37-year career he took part in the testing of prototypes and alterations of such models as the CH-47 Chinook and Sea Knight, the H-16, HRP-2, and the V-107. He taught the stability augmentation system to the German Luftwaffe. He has written about his experience in a blog called “Early Helicopter Years,” which can be found at http://helicopterstory.blogspot.com/.