Originally Posted by
JohnDixson
SAS, Shy and other former Army pilots: there is one non Sikorsky person who owns responsibility for a lot of the stiff requirements that went into writing the required specs for the UTTAS ( and AAH for that matter ). There was a group formed around 1968 or so and the officer in command was a former Vietnam pilot, Lt. Col Clarence ( Bud ) Patnode. He has a collection of stories about the arguments: wheels vs skids, one vs two engines, icing flight required or not, how to spec out preventing the head and main box from falling into the cabin/cockpit in a crash, how to spec out the fuel system safety and prevent flamers etc etc. There was a large and influential group of officers who thought that what was needed was simply a larger, bigger- engined Huey on skids. That he was able to come up with the Material Need Document , defend it and see it thru approval at Chief of Staff level is testimony to his abilities. He retired an O-6 and resides in Utah.
One early indicator of the excellence of his work is that during the UTTAS development period and fly-off, that specification did not change.