Cottonfields to Copters: Fifty-Five Years of Flying on the Edge of the Blade

After growing up in the cottonfields of west Texas, Dwayne Williams graduated from the U.S. Army's helicopter flight school and went on to fly over 16,000 flight hours during his 55-plus-year career. It all began when he became a helicopter gunship pilot in South Vietnam's Mekong Delta. After Vietnam, he was a U.S. Army instructor pilot, and later flew helicopters in support of oil drilling and production operations in the Gulf of Mexico. In Irian Jaya (formerly Dutch New Guinea), he flew high in the forbidding mountain ranges in support of the Ertsberg copper mine project; then taught young Iranian student pilots how to fly military helicopters in Isfahan, Iran. His stories include the largest helicopter he ever flew-the Sikorsky S-92-and becoming a night vision goggle specialist. He also squeezed in a venture over to the beautiful alpine countryside of Switzerland to make the initial flights on the Marenco SKYe SH-09, the first helicopter ever designed and test-flown there. It has all added up to a remarkable career!