his training. He was to be assigned his specialty training, his craft of expertise, he would soon have his own Patricia Ann.
Seven had been trained using the navy’s two light training helicopters. The TH-6B and the TH-57. They are small, light, single-rotor craft. Seven found that they were nimble, quick, and a pure pleasure to fly. He was comfortable in the air with a loud, vibrating rotor over his head. He relived the Colonel’s stories of buzzing the jungle canopy of Southeast Asia and dropping the Patricia Ann in beneath the treetops and sitting her down in an open field just long enough for the boys to come bolting in from the tree line and jump aboard. All while hostiles were firing their Soviet-made rifles at the idling savior. Patty was a HH/UH-1N commonly called the Huey. The Huey had proven itself to be the workhorse of the military. They were reliable, efficient, and could take a punch and still get the job done. There were few differences between the Patricia Ann and the modern version of the Huey. The instruments, radar, and communication systems had been updated but the skin and backbone of the craft were basically the same. Seven finished first in his flight school, a leader among the other recruit pilots. A feat well observed by the training school staff. He felt confident that his request to attend secondary training in the Huey would be quickly approved. Soon, he too, would have stories of buzzing jungle canopies in the navy’s most versatile and reliable rotary aircraft.
There wasn’t a formal ceremony for the next assignment of Seven’s flight class. Each of the recruits had submitted their request for secondary training, which was to be approved by the training commander, Lt. David Jenkins. Seven had established a good rapport with Lt. Jenkins. The lieutenant would often recognize Seven for his test scores and flight performance. It was a done deal in Seven’s mind, a no-brainer. “The lieutenant knew greatness when he saw it; how could he not grant the best pilot in the class his choice of airship?” Seven said to himself. While the other recruits in the class were filled with nervous anxiety about their next duty assignment, Seven felt comfortable and at ease when he entered Lt. Jenkins’s office to receive his next set of orders.