Re: Qh-50D Nite Panther

I was on the USS Blue (DD-744) and lived with and worked
on the three Nite Panther birds.

> Then ~18 Apr 1968, the personnel and drones were loaded onto
> the destroyer USS BLUE (DD-744) and left for an OPTEVAL off
> the coast of Vietnam.

Somewhere the story has been told that they went from
San Clemente Island, to the USS Blue, and then across
the bounding main to Viet Nam. I don't know where this
version came from but it's WRONG. We (USS Blue) had
already been home ported in Yokosuka for two years
before we received the Nite Panthers while sitting in
Danang harbor.

IIRC, we spent three days there because half the crew
took a Mike boat (LCM) filled with beer to a beach
for a swim party one day and the second half went
the next. It was said that we were the first warship
to ever spend the night within the harbor limits.
Musta been kinda tame in I Corps that Spring of '68.

> Apparently the drones didn't fair too well, because
> two were written off on 27/28 April. I'd love to hear
> "the rest of the story."

Yeah, it didn't quite go according to plan. Coulda used
some help from Col. Hannibal Smith (A-Team) there.

We assembled the tree birds while in harbor and
then put to sea. It's SOP, upon launching, to move
off to port and astern a few hundred yards and hover
to make a few post-launch checks. The first bird
lifted off, moved away to that position, and when
it was supposed to transition to hover it began
to swing wildly with increasing magnitude. By the
fourth swing it went over the top. As you may
know the QH-50 did not have rigid rotors and
therefore loops are not possible. The rotor blades
crossed and lead weights went flying everywhere.

There were two or three H-34 helicopters orbiting
us while all this was going on. Someone said they
were filming the events so perhaps there's something
packed away in the archives somewhere. Perhaps
between that crate containing the Holy Grail and the
one containing Obama's "real" birth certificate.
But I digress...

In the shipment we received a stack of yellow gear
which was the telemetry stack. This was set up in
the hangar and one of the civilians was supposed
to run it. After Nite Panther 1 splashed our weapons
officer (Lt Phil King) came flying back to the hangar
wanting to know what happened. When he got no
answer other than it went inverted and crashed he
turned to the civilian and asked what the telemetry
showed. Ahhhh, no telemetry. The two of them
walked away together and the civilian was never
seen again.

Since I had played with the telemetry when I was
at San Clemente I took it from there and we always
got good telemetry tapes.

FWIW: we fished one of the self-sealing fuel tanks
out of the sea and shot at it later with a .50 cal.
Much fun was had by all.

Now things get fuzzy. I don't know if all three birds
were lost, if we brought one back to Yokosuka, or
passed one off to another ship. The passage of
time and lack of notes often does this. Also, I don't
recall if the following events are all from missions
flown by one bird or from two.

While they were under the control of the Marines
we'd be recording video on a big Ampex video
tape machine. I think I recall seeing an artillery
shoot on a bridge but might have that confused
with other combat footage seen over the years.
I do recall -- pay attention, this is important --
a mission where we were sitting just off the DMZ.
When the bird was returning to the ship the
camera was pointing directly down and it looked
like it was flying over the surface of the moon.
Thousands of shell craters in the DMZ. As the
bird approached the beach, outbound, the
camera tilted up and you could see the Blue
off-shore. About the time it crossed the surf line
the picture started to wobble wildly and that
was all she wrote.

Many years later I was watching some historical
program about the war in Vietnam and there
was a group of VC rolling a DASH engine out
of the surf. Anyone who has ever seen a DASH
engine knows you can't mistake it for anything but.
Could it be that Nite Panther 2/3 was shot down?

Is that enough to qualify for "the rest of the story?"

David Bryant USN 65 - 86 dbryant@iols.net