Success in Helicopter Is Said to Depend on ‘Clean Living’ : Fire Dept. Honors Airborne Unit With Awards and Show

When you’re a helicopter pilot, whether you live or die is not a question of skill, said Ross Reynolds. “You’ve got no control at all,” he said. “It all depends on whether you’ve been a clean liver or not.”

Reynolds must have lived a pretty clean life. He survived three crashes in 16 years of flying helicopters for the Los Angeles City Fire Department and has flown in a host of feature films, including “Rambo” and “Blue Thunder.”

Reynolds was one of more than 30 former and active pilots in the department’s Helicopter Air Operations unit who were honored Saturday as the unit celebrated 25 years of service.

After a chicken-and-ribs feast, speeches and awards, about 120 onlookers at the unit’s headquarters at Van Nuys Airport watched an aerial show featuring firefighters rappelling (climbing down suspended ropes), maneuvering choppers and dropping hundreds of gallons of water.

The department has one of the best safety records in the world, said Deputy Chief Donald Anthony, who unveiled a plaque honoring the pilots. Only one department helicopter was involved in a fatal crash, he said. That accident, during a training mission 13 years ago, killed two pilots.

The first realization that support from the air could help fight Los Angeles’ fires came after a 1961 Bel-Air fire that roared virtually unimpeded across the Santa Monica Mountains from the San Fernando Valley to Beverly Hills, Anthony said.

Theodore (Bud) Nelson was one of the department’s first pilots. He traveled to Fort Worth that winter and flew back in the department’s first helicopter, a Bell Bubble manufactured at the Bell Helicopter plant there.

Initially, the craft was used primarily to report on the progress of a fire or damage. Reynolds said the early bubble-type crafts weren’t good for much more. The only way they could be used to transport an accident victim, for example, was to suspend the person from the aircraft’s spindly skids, he said.

“If they woke up, they were likely to look down and realize the only thing between them and the ground a couple of thousand feet down was some chicken wire,” he said. “It was liable to scare them to death.”

Nelson was on duty on Dec. 14, 1963, when the department’s one helicopter was first put to use.

The Baldwin Hills Dam collapsed that day, sending a wall of water through a neighborhood. “When I got there, cars were floating down the streets, some with people in them,” Nelson said. “You would see a house start to shudder under the impact of the water, then it would just explode.” Five people died. The only way into the area was by air.

Landed Atop Carports

Nelson landed the aircraft on the tops of carports to retrieve survivors.

Toward the end of the day, Reynolds took over. As he was hovering for a rescue, a wall gave way and sent water onto the helicopter’s tail rotor. Down he went.

Reynolds had to count slowly to remember how many times he has crashed.

“One, two . . . three,” he concluded. And that doesn’t include the seven times that he was shot down during World War II.

In the 1970s, the department got heavier machines, which were able to carry water tanks, paramedics or firefighting crews. The new aircraft were bought partly to keep up with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which was also developing a helicopter unit.

“There was always some rivalry,” said Howard Payne, 54, another unit veteran. “We’re the best, of course.”

The department has five active helicopters and several that serve as backups and parts reservoirs. Two sturdy aircraft were bought for $500 each from the U. S. Air Force, then each was refurbished with $80,000 worth of repairs, said George Barti, the pilot who led Saturday’s flying demonstration. “That’s a heck of a bargain,” said Barti, who piloted that kind of helicopter in Vietnam.

In a typical year, department pilots fly to about 1,000 fires and 200 accidents.

Vital in Stopping Brush Fires

Water-dropping helicopters have been vital in controling fast-moving fires, such as the one that raced through dry brush west of Chatsworth last summer, Anthony said.

“If the same fire had occurred 15 or 20 years ago, it would have burned clear to the ocean,” he said.

Expecting massive gridlock during the 1984 Summer Olympics, the department developed a technique for quickly dropping paramedics and firefighters trained in rappelling to the scene of accidents.

Rappelling, water drops and the airlifting of accident victims were all demonstrated in a roaring, dust-driving display on Saturday.

The audience, including families of department pilots, moved out to the field and craned their necks as five helicopters roared to life and swept toward the hills. After a hairpin turn, they returned. Three water-dropping aircraft let loose in synchrony with 350-gallon loads of water dyed red, white and blue.

Two orange-suited firefighters dropped 100 feet from a fourth hovering aircraft, like spiders unreeling silk strands. Within seconds, two more firefighters slipped down the lines. The fifth helicopter dropped a cable and lifted a mannequin “victim” to safety.

In a final display, the pilots floated their five-ton machines motionlessly, noses to the wind, above the field.