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Dave Zalunardo peered down through the plexiglass bubble of the small helicopter. Below him, sunlight and shadow played across the rough terrain of Oregon's Ochoco National Forest with its canopies of pine and clumps of juniper.
"I have a sighting," he said into his intercom headset. "Seven cows and four calves." 
For more than two hours, the 43-year-old US Forest Service wildlife biologist and his colleague Meg Eden, 41, of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, had crisscrossed the forest, conducting a census of the elk population. Between the two, on this cold Thursday afternoon of February 13, 1997, sat pilot Philip Stevenson, 43.
With his left had Stevenson tightened his grip on the chopper's collective-pitch lever. He left it go limp in his hand. He jiggled it up and down. There was no response. His heart racing, Stevenson shot a frantic glance up over his shoulder. To his horror, he saw through the bubble that the top of the vertical half-metre steel linkage rod had somehow separated from the main rotor shaft and was swinging free. In the next instant, Stevenson felt the aircraft lift totally on its own. Forcing himself to sound calm, he spoke into his mouthpiece. "We have a problem," the pilot explained. The disconnected rod was a vital part of the linkage that controlled the angle, of pitch, of the main rotor blades. Now unchecked, the rotor blades had angled upwards to full pitch, and the chopper was climbing out of control. "We'll continue rising to our maximum altitude of 3660 metres above sea level," he said. Then, because of thinner air, the copter would automatically level off. "We'll stay up there until we run out of fuel, Stevenson added. Eden looked at her watch. They'd taken off at 1:30pm and it was now close to 3:45. The chopper usually flew 2 1/2 hours on a tank of petrol. With a little in reserve, the figured, they had about 30 minutes left. Stevenson increased the speed to 100 knots (nearly 180 kmph) to slow the chopper's rate of ascent. The chopper 1400 metres above ground and rising 60 metres a minute. Stevenson saw only one chance, and that would require a rare act of courage. He turned to Zalunardo. "You've got to get out there and fix the pitch," he said. "Either that, or we're going to die." Neither Stevenson nor Eden could get out and reach it from where they were sitting in the cramped cabin. Zalunardo sat still for a moment. Although he'd learned to be at ease in an aircraft, he had never competely overcome a lifelong fear of heights. Even on a hunting platform 4 1/2 metres above ground he felt shaky. Then he shrugged. Once they ran out of fuel, they'd sink like a stone. Not daring to look down, Zalunardo unbuckled his seat belt and swung the left door open to the roar of the engine and a blast of icy air. With the head wind, the temperature was about minus 30 degrees C. Mere chance had put Zalunardo in the helicopter that day. No one in Meg Eden's department had been available to help with the elk census. An ardent conservationist, the darkbearded father of two had quickly agreed to assist her. "Taking care of wildlife is my thing," he told friends. Another of Zalunardo's keen interests was aircraft safety. Late one night 20 years before, he'd been aboard an aircraft when one of the two engines caught fire. Pilots doused the blaze using a built-in-fire extinguisher, and they landed safety, but a fear of flying stayed with Zalunardo. Trying to bring his fear under control, he had once taken a special flying course, learning how to control an aircraft in case the pilot was disabled. Now, standing in the doorway of the cabin, Zalunardo wrapped the shoulder harness of his seat belt several times around his left wrist. He stepped through the door and planted both feet in a 45-centimetre-wide wire-mesh cargo basket that ran under the aircraft. His red ski parka, gloves and the engine heat helped, but the cold was bitter. "What do I have to do?" Zalunardo asked into his headset, fitted tightly over his baseball cap. The howl of the engine and the din of the rotor blades were almost deafening. Stevenson motioned towards a 20-centimetre-long metal pitch-control arm protruding from the rotor shaft. "You need to push up on the arm," he told Zalunardo. This would reverse the upward angle of the rotors. Still holding the harness, the biologist straightened to his full five feet, 11 inches. A blast of wind whipped off his sunglasses and sent them flying. The pitch-control arm was still beyond his grasp. With adrenalin surging, he grabbed a support strut on the chopper's engine and released his grip on the seat harness. Next he stepped up 20 centimetres onto the narrow railing of the cargo basket, and leaned towards the craft. Stevenson steered in a wide right turn to keep Zalunardo's weight tilted into the chopper. Over the headset he instructed, "Push slowly... a little bit... only a little bit." Clutching the engine strut with his left hand, Zalunardo put his gloved fingertips on the bottom of the pitch-control arm. Gently he pushed up, but the small nudge was too much. In a split second, the aircraft dropped violently. Fighting for each breath, he held on. Stevenson couldn't stop the chopper's free fall. "The other way!" the pilot yelled. Through her headset, Eden took up the cry, "The other way!" Zalunardo pulled down, and the rotor blades shot back to full pitch. Very quickly, the copter resumed climbing. Zalunardo took several deep breaths. He still had his boots on the railing and a hold on the strut. Inside the copter, Stevenson shiveved. HE knew how close Zalunardo had come to being flung into the blades. Outside the aircraft, Zalunardo left his left contact lens slipping. Then his vision blurred. The lens was gone. Removing his gloves for a better grip on the pitch-control arm, he wedged them behind the engine strut. The wind whipped them away within seconds. Looking around, he was suddenly aware of the tiny shapes of the trees. "Whoa!" he cried, seizing the engine strut with both hands. In the cabin, Stevenson's eyes fixed on the needle of the fuel gauge. They were down to one-eighth of a tank-about 15 minutes of fuel. Still hugging the helicopter, Zalunardo now picked up the steel linkage rod that had disconnected from the pitch-control arm and, with his frozen right hand, held it up vertically. Watching him through the bubble, Eden turned to the pilot. "Philip, he's trying to reconnect the rod and the arm thing." If Zalunardo could restore the linkage, Stevenson would get pitch control back and bring the helicopter down. But how could Zalunardo make the repair while balanced outside a chopper? Climbing back in, Zalunardo said: "If I had a pin to thread through the holes, it might hold." Eden retrieved a multipurpose tool and opened out the awl. It was tiny, barely 2.5 centimetres long. Zalunardo took hold of it, his hands rigid with cold. By this time the chopper's altitude was 2900 metres. "Get out there, Dave," the pilot called. "You've got to do it, buddy or we're going to die!" The pitch-control arm ended in a U shape, like a tuning fork, with holes on either side. The rod, however, ended with a rotating ball, like the tip of a ballpoint pen. The ball had a hole through its middle. Somehow the bolt and locking nut, which held the assembly together, had worked loose and fallen off. The trick would be to get the holes to line up and stab through with the awl. Moments later, his feet again balanced on the cargo basket, Zalunardo fitted the rod inside the arm with his left hand and jabbed the awl using his right. But his hand wavered against the wind. He missed. Ten times he thrust with his awl. Twenty times. No luck. Every time Zalunardo tried to align the holes, the ball would rotate. Deep inside, he raged at his blurry vision and his clumsiness. Suddenly the chopper soared into the clouds, and Zalunardo was enveloped in mist. "You have to do it, buddy," Stevenson said into the headset. Zalunardo finally saw hole matching hole and stabbed. This time the awl went through. The pilot now felt the sudden tension in his collective-pitch lever, and he pushed it down slowly. The rotor blades angled downwards. The chopper began losing altitude. Fighting an urge to speed, Stevenson kept the descent gradual. He knew that Zalunardo had to maintain steady pressure on the awl. Any abrupt move might dislodge it and send the biologist flying. Eden held her breath. Outside, Zalunardo felt his head sinking with strain and fatigue. Hold on! He told himself. Stevenson brought the chopper in for a soft landing on about eight centimetres of snow. It was 4:10 by Eden's watch - 25 minutes from the time Zalunardo first climbed out-side the chopper. Now Zalunardo sprawled in exhaustion by the pilot's side. Looking at him, Stevenson thought about the rare kind of guts it had taken to save them. "You're my hero, Dave," he said quietly. Stevenson found the missing bolt in the engine pan and was able to rig a temporary repair. Then he flew to a refuelling stop, where he found he'd been down almost to his last 10 litres. Later Eden drove Zalunardo home. "Your father saved three lives today," Eden told his ten-year-old son, Michael. When he heard the story, Michael went to his room and returned with a gold medal that he'd won at his school swimming tournament. It was his most prized possession. Hanging the medal around Dave Zalunardo's neck, the boy said, "This is yours, Dad." |
| OTHER ARTICLES OF ASI JUNE'98 ISSUE | News In Brief | Letters To The Editor | World Records | | 1998 Free Flight World Cup | | Flying With The Birds | | Baltic Cup 1998 | | Some Rare Kind Of Guts | | Did He Actually Fly Before The Wright Brothers ? |  More articles on Rotorcraft
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