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Mike Dobson suggested I post this here. I was a relative new Army WO-1 assigned to HHT/3/17th Air Cav flying UH-1H at Phu Loi from Oct '71 to Mar '72. Next door to us was Det 6. One day I saw a Det 6 huey running on the pad and someone (crew chief or gunner) standing outside with one hand resting on the gun mount. The huey started a takeoff rotation but the guy outside didn't seem to make any movement to move away or get aboard. Instead, the huey started sliding forward, not hovering, and the guy moved along outside keeping his hand on the mount. As the aircraft picked up speed, at about the first bounce, the guy lightly stepped up on the skid and climbed into the cargo compartment. It all seemed planned and was, as it was explained to me by a much more experienced pilot. You guys remember that?
Years later, Desert Storm to be exact, I was flying the OH-58D (Armed), precursor to the Kiowa Warrior. Assigned mission was to recon Bubiyan Island. I suspect since I was the most senior Warrant Officer (now a CW4 SIP/IFE) they gave me the Sqdn CO as my right seater, the aircraft with the heaviest empty weight, weakest engine and heaviest weapons load (4 Hellfire). After we took on a full bag of gas the aircraft wouldn't hover, only slide. The CO asked, "Well, what do we do now, burn off fuel?" I replied, "No, Sir. Watch this and learn." I probably should have said, "Hold my beer," but that wouldn't have been well received. I "frog hopped" out of the refuel point, lined up as chalk 5 and told flight lead to go ahead without me and we'd catch up. After everyone has cleared and the air turbulence calmed down I pulled enough pitch to get light on the skids, engine temp was snuggled up against the bottom of the yellow line, and started to slide forward along the taxiway. The aircraft bounced once, then twice, then we were flying. Not fast, not pretty, but we were flying. Some casual observers might have called it "wallowing." Slowly accelerating, easy on the cyclic we divided the available power between speeding up and climbing. It took awhile but we caught the rest of the flight, and in the AO had sufficient power to fly the aircraft as it was intended. The LTC looked at me and asked, "Where did you learn that?" I replied, "Not at Mother Rucker. I saw this done in Vietnam, same reasons, same result." So thank you to the Det 6 guys who taught me a lesson well learned and well used ... and never knew it.
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