Feet Dry, Please God, Feet Dry!! Late summer 1970, a training exercise was being conducted off Long Island in what was known at that time as the Narragansett Op Area. (I never figured out if it was a tribute to the bay or the barely drinkable beer). The Quonset Point squadrons, HS and VS, were participating along with P-3s, E-2s, destroyers and subs from the northeast and mid-Atlantic. I arrived at HS-3 ready room in one of the old seaplane hangars at 2200 to get the briefing and pre-flight the Sea King for a 0000 launch of four aircraft – two from our squadron and two from another. Being one of the most junior AWs in the squadron, I hadn’t been scheduled for any night hops since leaving the RAG two months earlier. As a result I was both extremely excited and a little apprehensive – I didn’t want to make any mistakes. The pilots were both seasoned aviators, veterans of Med and North Atlantic cruises, and the first crewman was an E-6 former AX who became a plankholder in this new AW rating. Their combined experience in the H-3 gave me a feeling of security that quickly erased any apprehension I may have felt. The launch was uneventful, as was the transit out into Long Island Sound. We were being vectored by the Hawkeye who was placing the various aircraft in search patterns dictated by someone way above my pay grade on a tin can. We set up for a “Coupler” approach and settled into a stable hover, lowered the dome and began our search. After what seemed like only a few minutes, we were told to jump to a new spot and begin again. Once the dome was at trail, the HAC pulled in the collective and lowered the nose to get us to the next datum. Now, for anyone who has ever flown in the venerable Sea King, you know that it leaks – hydraulic fluid, transmission fluid, oil, you name it. And my seat was right under one of the most prominent leak areas – the main transmission. So I was not extremely surprised when a drip landed on my visor and ran down on my “Mae West”. I dismissed it as normal and went about my business of setting up the plotting board for the next dip. The pilots opted against a coupled approach and quickly put us in another 40’ hover. The first crewman slid the AQS-13 over to me and told me to have at it. With so many ASW assets in the area, there was no sense in a passive search. So, I lowered the dome just below the layer and starter pinging. My heart started pounding when, almost immediately, I heard a distinctly metallic “up-doppler” return from 265 degrees relative. Gotcha!! My first “real” contact! I was ecstatic; I was focused; I was gonna force him to the surface; I was interrupted by the pilots’ ICS override telling me to “raise the dome – emergency”. When the first crewman switched the ICS out of sonar and flipped on the radio switches, we heard the H2P telling the E-2 that we needed a vector to closest land. Meanwhile the pilots were talking between themselves about the rising main gearbox temperature. I was still raising the dome, and it had not broken the surface yet when the HAC nosed us out of the hover. I cautioned him about maximum airspeeds until “trail” and “seated”, which seemed to take forever to accomplish. Once the dome was seated, the first crewman and I started an inspection of the cabin. Almost immediately, we noticed the fluid leaking in greater-than-normal volumes from the drip pan under the main transmission. We reported our findings to the pilots who acknowledged but were more consumed by the rising gearbox temp and the dropping transmission oil pressure. The Hawkeye vectored us to the tip of Long Island – about 50 miles away. A “Stoof” and the other HS-3 helo took up formation with us as we made our way back to “feet dry”. The Hawkeye trailed behind constantly giving us headings and distance. Even with our helmets on and all the radio and ICS chatter it was impossible to ignore the new sounds emanating from the overhead. At 25 miles out, the low groaning became more pronounced and noticeably higher in frequency – you know, the sound of metallic parts under stress. At 10 miles out, the transmission was screaming like a proverbial banshee, letting all of us know that really, really bad things were about to happen. We could see the lights from some of the beach houses at Montauk, and we prayed that we would make landfall. At 3 miles, the HAC told us that the pressure had bottomed out and the temperature had pegged (not that he NEEDED to tell us about the temperature – it was hotter than a roman candle under the transmission). By now, we and our escorts had turned on every light we had in order to locate an LZ. The sky was ablaze from the helo landing lights and the fixed wing searchlights. I was already on my third or fourth mental review of ditching procedures when I heard the HAC utter the sweetest words I ever heard from a man: FEET DRY!!. About that time the squealing transmission decided that enough was enough – it spooled down to a crawl as we dropped from about 20 feet, 10 knots into a potato field, landing hard enough to sink the main mounts up to the sponsons and forcing spuds up into the sonar funnel. The pilots shut down the engines and applied the rotor brake to stop what little rotation was left in the blades, and we all just sat for a second, each of us thanking God and Igor Sikorsky for letting us live. Then, I opened the passenger door and jumped out into the field to start an exterior inspection of our crippled bird. As I walked around the front of the helo, awash in mud and light from above, I gave silent thanks to the guys up above us for seeing us through to a safe landing. I then became aware of lights moving toward us from across the field. As the lights drew closer, I realized that they were about a dozen people trudging – hesitantly – toward us. When they were about 50 feet away, I started walking toward them, and I could make out the jugs of wine and bottles of beer they were carrying. The group stopped short, and the designated leader shouted out, “Are you human?” In my mildly disoriented state, I had not yet removed my helmet or Mae West – with all their reflective tape – nor had I raised my visor – either one of them (for some reason I felt it necessary prior to landing to lower both the clear AND the tinted visors). Apparently, this group had been doing some hardy partying when the sky above them lit up and this screeching…thing…fell from the sky. And now some creature was walking toward them, and it seemed to be glowing from various parts of its anatomy. So, given their altered states of sobriety combined with my off-worldly aura, they naturally assumed that Earth had been invaded. Once I processed this data, I pulled off my helmet, stated my citizenship, and (against regulations) accepted a couple of long pulls from that jug of wine. We sat with the helo until after sunrise when another HS-3 helo arrived, dropped off some mechs and tools, and gave us a lift back to Quonset. I quickly put this incident behind me knowing full well that it was a fluke because the H-3 was the best helo ever to fly. Next installment…not so lucky.