October 1, 2019 Curtis Laird's Wildlife

The Liberty Gazette

October 1, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We met up with Dayton’s Curtis Laird again. That always results in storytelling, you know. During his tours in Vietnam, the veteran helicopter pilot took time to see the beauty of the country and the wild, wildlife.

Curtis: The beaches and coastal area of Vietnam are amazing. White sand, blue sea, and coconut palms made me wonder if Robinson Crusoe was following me. I’d marvel at the full moon over the South China Sea, and especially the contrails of about twenty-five B-52s, in the moonlight.

On one of my daytime missions along the coast, we were to fly from Qui Nhon to Nha Trang and recon some islands. There was a little scud (low clouds) onshore, so we flew about a quarter mile offshore. A few minutes into the flight, I saw on the horizon what appeared to be a swift boat. These were not common in this area. As we closed in on it, we ruled out boat but still could not identify it. I told the crew chief and gunner to ready up. We were going to check it out. Upon close observation, we discovered we’d prepared for battle with a giant oceanic manta ray on a feeding frenzy. It was a beautiful sight, as it would lift its wings out of the water, then slap the surface, then swim around and feed on its prey. We estimated it to be fifteen feet from wingtip to wingtip, but those rays can get over twenty-five feet.

Some of the other coastal wildlife and fowl are wild deer, ducks, peafowl, cuckoos, pheasants, and lots of no-shoulders. That is, snakes.

Going inland to the central highlands, it’s like entering a different world. Lush vegetation, waterfalls, valleys with steep slopes of greenery. There are wild boar, bear, monkeys, and green, blue and yellow parakeets, which leads me to another tale.

We were coming off general support status, relocating to provide assistance to another unit. The flight leader decided we would fly low level in loose formation. There were some uncomfortable feelings about this. There we were at treetop level (sometimes referred to as the nap of the earth), twelve aircraft going about 90-100 knots. Well into the flight, the leader made some erratic movements. We thought he was taking fire, but he came up on the radio and advised he’d had a bird strike. That was a relief given the alternative, but it did leave a big hole in the left chin bubble.

After things settled down from that excitement, I saw a blue cloud fly by. The radio came to life again. Some of the other crews had seen it also. Then we saw a green cloud about the same size as the blue one. That’s when we discovered we had flown right through parakeet country, putting its residents in panic mode.

Mike: Come back next week for another installment of Laird Storytelling.

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