Info Sheet - Gary M. Schmidt
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"As I say to people, being a Cobra crew chief was the best job I've ever had. WO Martin "Sullie" Sullivan tried to teach me how to hover onetime behind the rocket pit at Cu Chi. The ship was very light as we didn't have any rockets loaded. I did manage to get 2 combat missions in a Cobra along with a lot of "test flights". Did ok with the collective and pedals, just couldn't find it very easy with the short cyclic stick off to the side and I was sweating like a pig. Anyway, I did 5 unauthorized takeoffs. I feel so fortunate to have had that experience."
Before joining the Army, I took flight lessons in a Cessna 150 and managed to get 9 hr's solo 36 hr's total.
Gary is a advanced Modeler of helicopters.
This the model of my AH-1G Cobra 67-15567 I was a Crew Chief on in Vietnam. It took me almost a year to build almost 20 years ago. I had to combine two kits in 1/48 scale, a Fujimi AH-1J and an AH-1S. I switched the tail rotor to the left side and detailed the hub. I scrachbuilt out board rocket pods, minigun, 40mm and modified turret. The cockpit was detailed and includes a photo reduced map of our area of operations. I added main rotor blade tracking fins to the edge of the blades. The canopy was tinted in blue. Each tooth of the sharkmouth was cut out from scrap white decals. I repositioned the nose as it was too up pointed on kit. Added tow rings to the top of skids. The parts that are zinc green are replacement parts left in primer color. I hand painted name The Henchman II and Centaur. The Henchman one (67-15827 my first ship) was shot down and autorotated into a rice paddy, No injuries - Gary