EDowning wrote:
Back when I first started flying attack helicopters, I was flying the AH-1S Cobra in Mainz, Germany. It was in the early 80s, before the wall came down and we had a very complex community structure that of course included the U.S. Army, German and British air power in a very small air space structure. One of the favorite activities of the local anti U.S. faction was to call multiple times a day and make noise complaints.
To deal with this the Army put a full Col in charge of an area that dealt with this and other community relation issues. I happened to be the Staff Duty Officer when he finally broke down and had the following exchange with a local German guy who called almost every day.
German: Col _____, we have experienced additional damage from the overflight of our city by the U.S. Army Helicopters.
Col: Sir, How do you know it was a U.S. Army Helicopter, Sir, and not a Bundeswehr (German) helicopter?
German: The imperialist U.S. has more helicopters than anyone else in the world and are clearly the most destructive. And besides I saw a large "U.S. Army" sign on the side, these always do the most damage to our quiet community.
Col: I would like to correct you and solicit your help in the future. The U.S. doesn't maintain the largest fleet of helicopters in the world. If you happen to see a large helipcoter with a "Red Star" on the side, please call us promptly, they can be very damaging. Oh, and as a side note, please be advised if you do make that call, we will probably be flying a number of sorties in your neighborhood as well.
We got far fewer noise complaints after that.

Thats a good one!
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