AN IMMIGRANT SUCCESS STORY

Amid the current controversy attending immigration, I want to tell you about a cherished friend, a first-generation American whose family emigrated here.  Legally.

He is Sergei I. Sikorsky, who recently celebrated his 100th birthday.

 

Yes, that Sikorsky. 

 

The world knows Sergei’s father Igor as designer of the first single-rotor helicopter.  But before focusing on rotary-wing aircraft, Igor had two previous aviation careers.  A native Ukrainian, he designed and flew the world’s first multi-engine airplane in 1913.  After emigrating to America (legally) amid the Russian Revolution—he was threatened with execution—he set the standard for long-distance flying boats, partly due to Charles Lindbergh’s support.

 

Sergei was the first child of Igor and Elisabeth Sikorsky, born bin New York in 1925.  He was named for an uncle who perished with all hands on a Czarist cruiser early in World War One. 

 

Because of his father’s vast aviation network, Sergei grew up knowing everybody: Jimmy Doolittle, Eddie Rickenbacker, racer Roscoe Turner and others.  Among other activities, he had water fights with the Lindbergh kids.

 

Sergei was as smitten with aviation as his father, starting with models at age six.  Two years later he made his first flight sitting on Igor’s lap in an S-38 amphibian.  He soloed in a Piper Cub at 16, sometimes treating siblings to loops and wingovers.

 

A sidebar: I met Sergei at Mesa, Arizona’s Falcon Field probably in the early to mid 80s when a beautiful reproduction Sikorsky S-38 stopped for fuel.  I recognized it as the company’s early success, distinct with its high-mounted twin engines, tall rudders, and pronounced snout-like fuselage.  The type had been an instant hit in 1928, setting the company on the path to commercial success.

 

Glancing around the crowd of well-wishers, I thought, “My gosh, that looks like Sergei Sikorsky!”

 

And he was, having been notified of the 38’s arrival time.  The long drive from the Phoenix West Valley was entirely worthwhile.

 

Thus began one of the most valued friendships of my life—Sergei and Elena—who have afforded rare insight to 20^th century personalities.

 

Igor Sikorsky’s circle included expatriate Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who organized financial support for the nascent company.  

 

A quick story about Rachmaninoff.  He invited the Sikorskys to a back-stage concert soiree in New York where he introduced the 12-year-old Sergei to vodka and caviar.  The lad was precocious in all things and took to the combination.  Mrs. Sikorsky was…unenthusiastic.

 

About six months after Howard Hughes July 1938 round the world record flight in less than four days, he landed at the Sikorsky factory in Stratford, Connecticut.  He debarked from his Lockheed without his globe-spanning crew, but with a significant passenger.

 

Miss Ginger Rogers alit in a clinging white dress that left little to the imagination.  Sergei saw what he saw and concluded then and there: “Girls are different.”

 

Meanwhile, returning to the chronology:

 

Then came the war.

 

The U.S. military recognized the potential of helicopters and sent recruiters to cherry-pick Sikorsky talent. An Army colonel selected likely candidates while Commander Frank Erickson—“Mr. Coast Guard Helicopter”—had a slot for Seaman Recruit Sikorsky straight out of boot camp.

 

Thus Sergei became an aviation machinist mate, and you’ve probably seen him on documentaries.  He’s the 19-year-old guinea pig being hoisted into an R-4 (Navy version the HNS-1) with the experimental rescue collar.

 

Postwar, Sergei fetched himself to Italy where he had a really good time studying art and models.  His anatomical sketches so impressed some medical instructors that he was invited to consider pursuing a career in that field.  But he decided to return to America, still enamored with the lure of flight.

 

After a stint with an aviation magazine, Sergei joined United Aircraft in 1951, beginning a 24-year career selling helicopters. He was especially active in Europe where his linguistic talent commended him to marketing.  He had grown up speaking Russian at home but added Italian, French, and German.  He still speaks with a slight accent, pronouncing “bomber” as “bom-ber .“ In that time he variously held pilot licenses from the U.S., France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.  He also provided technical support in Japan—in many ways a citizen of the world.

 

Among the other world citizens was Edward VIII, who in 1936 famously declined the British crown in favor of “the woman I love,” the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.  In the early 50s Sergei had a mutual friend in Paris who invited him to dine with the couple, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  Partway through the evening, the duke said that he wished to speak privately with Mr. Sikorsky.

 

Certainly, your grace.

 

In an anteroom, the tall, elegant Briton said that he yearned to discuss aviation with a knowledgeable person.  Sergei Sikorsky definitely checked that box.

 

Edward recalled a royal visit he and his brother (later King George VI) made to Chile in 1931.  They were flown on a specially purchased S-38 during their visit.  The Duke of Windsor made some flattering comments about the Sikorsky reputation both in airplanes and helicopters.

 

Edward died about 20 years later, age 77.

 

Sergei returned to the family business in 1975, having sold the heavy-lift CH-53 Super Stallion, still operational today.  Some authorities credited the German purchase with assuring Sikorsky Aircraft financially. 

 

Sergei retired as a corporate vice president in 1992 but remains a widely sought-after consultant and speaker.  His Dutch-born wife Elena van Mechelin says that for all his linguistic versatility, “Sergei just cannot say No.”  However, she manages his travel itinerary with aplomb, and they’re one of the best-matched couples you will ever meet.

 

Elena and I have waged a notably unsuccessful two-front campaign trying to convince Sergei to write—or at least narrate—his memoirs.  He stoutly resists the notion, which is a loss to history.  Aside from innumerable personal and professional insights, the Sikorsky family’s inspirational example as immigrants matter perhaps now more than ever.  

 

At 100, Sergei remains alert, engaged, and surprisingly active.  Still a citizen of the world—a patriotic American, a true renaissance man— and one of the most fascinating people you could hope to meet.

IN PRAISE OF HELICOPTER PILOTS

 

The deaths of 64 people in this month’s midair collision at Reagan National Airport has focused often unpleasant attention on the Army helicopter crew that collided with an airliner.

At this early date, it’s understandable that we have far more questions than legitimate answers.  However, most of the informed commentary—and President Trump’s lengthy statement—indicate at least some culpability with the Black Hawk crew.

How experienced were the two pilots?  

Media accounts describe the army aviators as “fairly experienced” or “reasonably experienced.”

Reportedly the senior pilot had 1,000 flight hours; the junior pilot only 500. For context, my friend Sergei Sikorsky (of whom you will read more next month) knows of Indian Army helicopter pilots with more than 1,000 hours above 10,000 feet, flying rescue missions.

That’s the trouble with generalist reporters—they have little to zero frame of reference for such things.

“Nobody should try writing about aviation unless they’ve been in aviation.”

I wrote those words in a previous century.  They remain valid in the current century.

So, in honor of “rotor heads” everywhere, I offer these examples among my friends and sources.

Haiphong Harbor, 1967

Then-Navy Lieutenant Steve Millikin, a journalism major from the University of Oregon, flew rescue missions in the Tonkin Gulf.  On April 26, Steve’s SH-3 crew was dispatched to the scene of a USS Ticonderoga  A-4 Skyhawk shootdown.  The pilot ejected and was afloat in his Mae west at the entrance to Haiphong Harbor.

Unknown to Steve’s crew, minutes earlier another “Tico” Skyhawk had been downed by a surface to air missile inland from Haiphong.  The pilot received a posthumous Medal of Honor, an event described by my late-great friend and coauthor Commander John B. Nichols in the USNI Proceedings article “On Your Wing.”

Steve motored into range of shore guns, making all of 130 knots and came to a hover over Lieutenant (JG) J. W. Caine.  While the helo’s crew chief returned fire with his machine gun, the copilot unlimbered his Thompson and hosed off optimistic rounds toward shore.

With Cain in the rescue collar, the crew chief hoisted the aviator toward the cabin while Steve added power and got the hell out of there.

Shortly thereafter Steve’s family in California saw him receive a well deserved Silver Star on the CBS Evening News.

Steve retired as a captain after 28 years, becoming editor of the Tailhook Association quarterly journal, and finally retired in 2006.  He died with an Agent Orange diagnosis in 2016, a fine gentleman widely admired.

Quang Tin Province, 1968

Major Patrick Brady began his second Vietnam tour in 1967, an inspirational example to the young warrant officers who often arrived in country with barely 200 flight hours. Because of his extensive background, the 31-year-old South Dakota pilot often he took his unit’s night navigation and instrument flight missions until the newbies built more experience.

On January 6, early in the Communist Tet Offensive, Brady began flying before dawn, penetrating clouds and darkness on the first of repeated medical evacuation missions.  Finding the designated South Vietnamese unit, Brady flew uphill sideways to judge his Huey’s rotor clearance to the trees.  It was an incredible feat of flying.

On the next mission Brady ignored the fact that two choppers had been shot down near the landing zone.  He made four flights into that hellish place, rescuing casualties each time. 

In seven sorties Pat Brady used three Hueys to evacuate 52 infantrymen.  When I interviewed him, he regretted that he did not have time to record the crew names on those flights.

He received the Medal of Honor plus 62 other combat decorations and retired as a major general with 34 years of service.  He continued his exceptional ways, receiving an MBA from Notre Dame.

Pat Brady wrote, “We are not born equal in terms of ability or opportunity.  There is only one way we can compete  equally in life: courage!”

Hue, South Vietnam, 1968

On January 31, 1968, three weeks after Brady’s actions, Chief Warrant Officer Fred Ferguson was a 28-year-old Arizonan with prior Navy service.  Ferguson’s unit, operating under the 1st Cavalry Division, intended to rescue a battalion and company commander whose helicopter had been shot down in the beleaguered city of Hue, mostly surrounded by North Vietnamese forces.

Five Hueys had been driven off by intense ground fire, and others were waved off by the regional military command.

Undaunted, Ferguson and his platoon commander, Lieutenant W.H. Anderson, conducted a radio briefing with three escorting gunships.  Their CO advised against trying to reach him, but left the decision to the Huey pilots.  As the more experienced flier, Ferguson was in charge.

Observing the chaotic situation, Ferguson flew up the Perfume River where enemy gunners fired down on his Huey, hitting it repeatedly.  He plunked into a precision landing inside the walled compound where Vietnamese soldiers tossed casualties aboard.  Then Ferguson added power, pulled pitch, and lifted out of the confined space.  

Seconds later mortar shells exploded where he had landed.  His chopper absorbed more damage on the way out.  Its next flight was slung beneath a big Chinook.

Months later Ferguson was told that his CO wanted to speak with him. “My first thought was, ‘What have I done now?’”  He was going to receive the Medal of Honor, presented by President Richard Nixon in May 1969.

Subsequently Fred forfeited his major’s oak leaves for warrant officer bars so he could continue military flying.  

He retired as a helicopter instructor in 1997, then joined the Arizona Department of Veterans Services.

Of his Medal mission, he says, “We worked together to do our job.  We were lucky and were just glad to be around at the end of the day.”

Planet Earth, 20th century

I’ll call him “Mack.”  He’s from an old Oregon farming family whose property nearly adjoined my father’s acreage.  

Mack got the flying bug early and went Army in a big way, leading to 22,000 innovative flight hours.  He might be the only pilot I know who’s been shot at on three or four continents.  Mack flew Hueys in Vietnam (“So high that I was just a speck up there above the gunfire”), and transitioned to CH-47 Chinooks in the National Guard where his depth of experience and irrepressible personality overcame officialdom.

Subsequently Mack lateraled to one or two U.S. Government agencies—I’ve never asked too closely— flying diplomatic and/or deniable missions in South and Central America plus Afghanistan. Officially Afghanistan is in Southwest Asia while Vietnam is Southeast Asia—and that might run Mack’s total to four after all.