There I was 10,000 feet.....

It was a beautiful day out, visibility unlimited (if there is such a thing), winds calm (except at altitude) and we were supporting the Green Beret Sport Parachute Club at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. John Raybon and I volunteered to fly the jump mission that weekend in support of the "GB" club (My dad always told me to never volunteer for anything while in the Army, I should have listened). We were flying the UH-1H helicopter (the Vietnam work horse, the UH standing for Utility Helicopter and the other H indicating the model) taking jumpers to 10,000 plus feet as the jump altitude. We had made several elevator trips that morning and had commented on how strong the winds were at altitude. It's amazing how sluggish the huey helicopter gets at that altitude due to the air density or lack there of. At 10,000 plus feet you have to be very gentle on the controls because you didn't want anything bad to happen. To many bad aerodynamic things can happen to explain in this blog. We always joked, "It's not the fall but the sudden stop that hurts". We call it decelerating forces. Anyway, at that altitude and flying into a strong head wind, when you looked down at the ground through the chin bubble of the aircraft it looked like you were flying backwards. A strange sensation and eerie to say the least. The jump run was always flown into the wind and we received minor heading changes from the Jumpmaster to ensure we hit the correct release point for the jumpers. Like I said, John and I had commented on how strong the winds were that day at altitude but it wasn't that unusual, at least to any great concern, so we continued the mission.Well we piled a new group of jumpers on board, all friends of ours, because if we weren't flying these guys we were usually jumping with them. We took off and climbed to altitude. Everything was good to go as we made a right turn to begin the jump run. I was flying the aircraft, being easy on the controls and could feel the wind pushing the aircraft sideways in the turn. The turn was real gradual. Remember I was being easy on the controls and didn't want any big attitude changes at that altitude. John was half turned in his seat looking and talking to the jumpers over the intercom system in the aircraft as we made the turn. Things were going great when all of a sudden there were two or three loud bangs that came from the engine, hell it could have been 10 bangs, all I knew was it was loud and the aircraft was shuttering like mad. As the sequence started, I leveled the aircraft, looked at John and just the look on his face unnerved me and by the time I looked back at the instrument panel to get an indication of what was happening, the damn engine quit. It's amazing how fast or how slow things happen when the shit hits the fan. There I was 10,000 feet and not wanting to be there. The jumpers exited the aircraft immediately. So much for friends sticking around in a crisis. I had already lowered the collective and entered autorotation keeping the aircraft at an 80 knot attitude. I was already looking for a place to land because we were falling like a rock. In the aviation world, planes glide, helicopters fall like expensive rocks.It's strange how quiet it gets at 10,000 feet when the engine quits. You hear sounds you've never heard before and sounds I never wanted to hear again. As we bounded towards mother earth it was nothing but assholes and elbows in the cockpit. As I flew the aircraft, John quickly got the check list out and opened it to emergency start procedures. As John was getting everything in the cockpit ready to pull the trigger for a restart, I kept thinking, hurry up John, hurry up John, hurry up John but I never said it out loud.The procedure for starting is fairly simple but simple is not fast enough when falling like a rock. I wasn't tooooo worried, easy for me to say now, because landing with no power was no problem. We had practiced this many times flying the aircraft to the ground from an autorotation but it's just damn unnerving knowing it's the real thing. Well at about 3000 feet, John pulled the trigger and we were able to get powered flight back at about 1,000 to 1,500 feet. We landed the aircraft safely, shut it down, climbed out, kissed the ground and called the maintenance officer. He said we probably had a compressor stall and that he would come out and fly it back. Well, while he and another maintenance officer flew the aircraft back, John and I went to the GB club and had a nice cold beer, probably two.John was a great friend. He was later killed in a helicopter accident in El Salvador.