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     I remember it was the 1^st of May, 1970, when I flew the first aerial police patrol over the city of Houston.  I couldn’t have programmed better weather; the mid-morning Texas sky was a brilliant blue - giving us unlimited visibility - with an air temperature at a comfortable 70 degrees, accompanied by a constant 10-knot wind - blowing out of the northeast - providing a glassy-smooth ride.

      Sergeant Andy Anderson was piloting the helicopter from the left seat, while I was acting as observer/instructor in the right seat.  Sgt. Andy possessed a dark complexion, stood at a lanky Six-foot-four, and was a powerfully built gentle giant.  He was a local boy, with a Texas drawl, and didn’t have a mean bone in his body.  He had also been a good student – quickly picking up the skills of an “Angry Palm Tree Driver.”

     We were both dressed in comfortable civvies, with black ball caps and aviator’s dark glasses.  For communications in our noisy environment we wore headsets with boom microphones.  Thanks to Ken Harmon, we also wore U.S. Army-issue earplugs – preventing hearing loss from all the racket bombarding our bodies from engine, main transmission and rotor blades.

     There was a trigger switch on the cyclic control’s pistol grip – pressing it with the right index finger to the first detent activated the interphone – mashing it all the way down allowed transmission either on the tower frequency or police radio – depending on what was selected on our individual communication’s mixer box.

     “Goddamn, Pete...” Sgt. Andy transmitted on the interphone.  “This is more fun than girls.  It really beats hell outta patrolling in a prowl car.”

     “Be careful, Sergeant,” I replied, “you might just get bit by the flying bug.”

     “Too fuckin’ late, pardner,” Sgt. Andy laughed.

     Alright, dear reader, perhaps you can clear up a mystery that has plagued my flying career.  Whenever I transmit over a radio or interphone...my stutter disappears!  I swear to God...Freud would have had a field day with me!

     I had convinced myself it was going to be an “easy day.”  All I had to do was sit back and relax, while my cop/student chauffeured me about Houston at 60 mph; monitoring the police radio and sightseeing from 500 feet above the city in our patrol safety corridors.  I remember admiring the sparkling city below as it spread out from horizon to horizon, and considered I had it made.  What could possibly go wrong on such a perfect day?

     Oh yes, dear reader, you’ve once again nailed it on the head. “Stick around.”

     Honest to Christ, we hadn’t been in the air twenty minutes when our police FM radio crackled to life - the HPD Dispatcher issuing a chilling message:

     “Attention all units...attention all units.  Shots fired at Bert Wheeler Liquors...8306 Southwest Freeway.”

     “Dammit!” I thought.  “There goes my ‘easy day’.”

     The police department supplied a truly excellent map booklet of the city, dear reader, designed for their prowl cars. We also adapted it to our helicopters, and had used it in mapping out the patrol safety corridors and all obstructions such as major electrical transmission lines and microwave towers.  While charting the city, I had uncovered more than 600 microwave towers, above 300 feet, without any red warning lights - in direct violation of Federal Aviation Regulations.  I turned in one of these map booklets, marked with the location of the 600-plus offenses, to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) shortly before I left Houston.  All of the FAA Inspectors were very unhappy with me.  Perhaps even today, they’re still tracking down the offenders to fine them.  Resulting in why I can never return to Houston; an awful lot of unhappy people are waiting for me there.  

     As I reached for the map booklet, I transmitted on the interphone, “You want me to look that address up, Andy?”

     Sgt. Andy glanced out his left door and did a double take.  “Sonofabitch!” he exclaimed over the interphone.  “I can see it!  We’re almost there.”

     So why were Sgt. Andy and myself totally amazed by this fact, dear reader?  Houston was one big cow-town having 450 square miles to patrol.

 

         Houston was also home to the fabulous Astrodome.

      Additionally, Houston was home to the Manned Space Center.     

      “Mission Control.”

I happened to arrive at Houston roughly six months after the first men walked on the moon.

    This was who Tom Hanks was talking to in the film, when he said: “Houston...we have a problem.”

     Previously, I had divided the city in half with Ken Harmon – currently Ken was patrolling the eastern half with a cop/student – while Sgt. Andy and I patrolled the western half.  The odds of us being practically on top of a gunfight were astronomical - especially on our first day of aerial patrol!

     “Well, throw the coal to her, pardner, and let’s go direct,” I recommended over the interphone. 

     Andy lowered the nose a tad with the cyclic and banked left, as he increased main rotor pitch and throttle with the collective.  Rolling out on a beeline course for Bert Wheeler Liquors, we accelerated to the Vne red-line speed of 87 mph.

     Being my first visit to Mr. Wheeler’s (Sgt. Andy had visited it many times before as both a customer and policeman) I was amazed to discover a liquor outlet that covered nearly a quarter-block, with a huge parking lot on its west side.  Overcoming my initial surprise, as we rapidly drew closer, I then spotted a 1968 black over gold Camaro coupe taking off from the front entrance, at the building’s southwest corner, with both doors open.

     A dead give away, dear reader.

     It charged down the west side of the massive liquor store and never closed its doors.

     I took possession of the helicopter’s dual controls, as I said over the interphone, “Andy...ya got that black and gold car with the doors open?”

     “Uh...yeah, I sure do,” Andy replied on the interphone.

     “Okay, buddy, I’ve got the helicopter...you’re now the observer so call it in,” I ordered over the interphone. 

     My logic was this, dear reader: Sgt. Andy had spent years learning Houston’s streets and police radio procedures.  I had not.  Placing him in charge of the observer’s duties would not only get the job done quickly and accurately, but would be good experience for him when flying with his own future observers.  By my positioning the helicopter properly, so Sgt. Andy could observe everything as the heavy shit goes down, he’d learn how to do this for his observers.  We learn by doing.

     “This is Fox One,” Sgt. Andy transmitted on the police radio, ”we’ve got a black over gold Camaro on the west side of Bert Wheeler’s with both doors open...heading for the alley behind it.”

     Sgt. Andy and I then observed the Camaro, five hundred feet below, round the liquor store’s northwest corner and enter the alley behind it – both doors were still open.

     Bert Wheeler Liquors had been robbed several times before, dear reader, usually by Black criminals coming out of the Third Ward – a sort of Black ghetto.  This alley was a short cut to the Third Ward where the perpetrators usually evaporated.

     The alley was tight and narrow, with a 12-foot chainlink fence on one side and the liquor store and other businesses on the other side.  Today, however, instead of slipping away into the Third Ward, the Camaro almost slammed into a red 1967 Mustang that had been deliberately parked lengthwise, across the alley as a roadblock, and abandoned.  Upon hearing the gunshots the Mustang’s owner, from the business next door, had previously ran outside and repositioned his “pride and joy” as this roadblock – denying the bad guys an easy escape route.

     “This is Fox One,” Sgt. Andy transmitted once more on the police radio, “the Camaro is stuck in the alley behind Bert Wheeler’s.  It’ll have to back up and come through the parking lot on the west side again.”

     After hesitating a moment...the Camaro attempted to drive around the Mustang.  Nevertheless the chainlink fence denied it passage – there just wasn’t enough room.  Ultimately, true to Sgt. Andy’s prediction, the Camaro started to back up.

     From out of nowhere a blue & white police cruiser pulled into the alley behind the Camaro, and blocked its retreat.  Obviously the officer behind the wheel had been following Sgt. Andy’s radio transmissions.  The officer now exited his vehicle, used the driver’s door as a shield, and began exchanging gunfire with the suspects inside the Camaro.

The Houston cops refer to it as “The Shop”: the HPD “blue & white.” 

     Then I spied a White male, in a white shirt and dark slacks, at the liquor store’s northwest corner – he raised what looked like a rifle, which then fired – blowing out the Camaro’s rear window.  By the amount of damage, I felt it was a shotgun.

     Following that, a second blue & white prowl car pulled up on the other side of the Mustang.  Its officer also vacated this vehicle, used his door as a shield, and commenced blasting away at the Camaro.

     Abruptly it finished.  Surrounded and out-gunned, the perpetrators in the front seat threw out their weapons – then I observed two young Black males in Hawaiian shirts exit the Camaro with their hands raised. 

     The man in the white shirt and the second uniformed officer took the perpetrators into custody – laying them face down and cuffing their hands behind them.

     The first uniformed officer went to his prowl car behind the Camaro – reached in and retrieved the microphone to his radio.  Standing outside his vehicle, watching the suspects, the officer transmitted on the police radio: “Be advised we have two suspects in custody at Bert Wheeler’s...we’ve also got an officer shot.”

     “Hey, Pete, maybe we better land and help out,” Sgt. Andy suggested on the interphone.

     “Yeah, Andy, I was thinking the same thing,” I replied on the interphone.  “If that officer’s wound is serious I’ll medevac-him to the nearest hospital.”

     While saying this, I was already eye-balling a landing spot in the parking lot roughly 200 feet from Bert Wheeler’s front door on the west side.  The 10-knot wind was still out of the northeast, so I executed a descending downwind leg towards the west – followed by a 180 to the left that placed me into the wind – then neatly touched down in the parking lot in an area devoid of parked cars.

     “Andy...” I said on the interphone, “you run on ahead.  I’ll secure the bird.”

     Andy stowed his headset, released his safety harness and seat belt, then unlatched the Plexiglas door, jumped out of the helicopter, re-latched the door and sprinted towards Bert Wheeler’s front entrance at the southwest corner of the building.

     I reduced power on the engine and began its cooling process, while I disengaged the main and tail rotors gradually from the engine, with the spring-loaded, electric clutch switch.  This took barely a minute to accomplish.  While I waited, I secured the friction locks on both cyclic and collective control sticks.  When the cylinder head temperature gauge cooled enough, I throttled down the engine to idle and pulled out the mixture control, which starved the engine of fuel – promptly the engine expired.  I then switch off the magnetos and all other electrical switches – saving the battery switch for last.

     Upon exiting the helicopter, I faced another securing problem.  The main and tail rotors were coasting at a fairly good clip – a definite hazard to passers-by and other rubberneckers.

     This is an anomaly, dear reader, which I’ve witnessed during my years flying helicopters.  As the uneducated approach a helicopter with whirling rotor blades, they get so distracted by the main rotor that they invariably walk right into the tail rotor - totally ruining their day.  At this stage there was a lot of resistance, both inside and outside the department, against the introduction of police helicopter patrol.  If some kid walked into my tail rotor – spreading its cute little brains across the parking lot – the news media would have a field day and I could pack my bags for California.  Because the fledgling helicopter patrol program would most likely be scuttled from such a mishap.

     Unfortunately the Hughes 300B didn’t have a rotor brake, which would allow one to quickly halt coasting main and tail rotor blades.  However, clever “Angry Palm Tree Drivers” had come up with a solution to this dilemma: brute force.

     There is an exposed section of the tail rotor’s drive shaft - where it exits the main transmission - before it enters the tail boom housing.  The drive shaft at this location is a large, hollow aluminum tube covered in white enameled paint.  By a pilot holding this tube like a baseball bat - and squeezing - the pilot can slow down both the main and tail rotor blades – in time bringing them to rest.

     Be prepared though, dear reader, for a good deal of friction on your hands and squealing - both from the drive shaft and you.  We labeled this procedure the “poor man’s rotor brake.”

     It’s best to use a couple of shop-rags to protect one’s hands from the friction.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have rags that morning – so I bit the bullet and ended up with a hot set of palms.

     At length I got the rotor blades stopped, and fled with my hot hands towards Bert Wheeler’s entrance.

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