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War Stories

Centaur 13, a Call Sign Odyssey

by Eric Brethen

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I volunteered to be a Scout Pilot and was set up to have a check ride with Bruce Karn. I did not want to be a co-pilot for several months before making A/C so I immediately volunteered for the single pilot LOH platoon. I found out later that nobody volunteers for that job that knew anything about what the job entailed.

Bruce Karn, who was approaching the end of his tour, was assigned to check me out (transition) in the OH-6A aircraft. His call sign was Centaur 13.

While performing an auto rotation on the main runway at Cu Chi I had some forward momentum when we touched down and my skid shoe caught in one of the holes in the PSP runway and we nosed over slightly causing me to pull back on the cyclic to prevent further tipping. I pulled back so hard I sheared the tail boom and we both watched the tail boom go skidding by us down the runway.

Bruce was heartbroken because he was leaving for the US in a few days and the incident was the only damage to an aircraft that he was flying during his entire tour

I asked for and inherited his call sign, Centaur 13. I'm sure he still remembers me (rather the incident) but he doesn't know that I turned out pretty well wearing his moniker of "13" and did no further damage to his legacy or that of our mutual call sign.

I handed over that prestgeous call sign to Tom Dooling when I went to Cobras.