Dwayne Williams was a combat pilot in South Vietnam alongside other brave young men who have long since remained his brothers. That became the bedrock of his long career. During a 31-year stint at Bell Helicopter, Dwayne was honored to fly their last XV-15 Tiltrotor to its permanent home at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport. He is a recipient of the American Helicopter Society’s Frederick Feinberg award, FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Aviator Award for 50 years of safe flying, and was named HAI’s W.A. “Dub” Blessing Flight Instructor of the Year. He has also been a FAA Designated Engineering Representative Flight Test Pilot since 1992. Dwayne currently resides in Arlington, Texas, with his lovely wife of 56 years. Lynnette took him to Fort Wolters, Texas, to begin flight school, and pinned on his Army Aviator wings when he completed it. She has always been his guiding light and hero.
Cottonfields to Copters
Fifty-Five Years of Flying on the Edge of the Blade
by Dwayne Williams
Cottonfields to Copters
Fifty-Five Years of Flying on the Edge of the Blade
by Dwayne Williams
Published Feb 24, 2022
471 Pages
Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Book Details
Helicopter pilot shares thrilling stories from his long and exciting career—from piloting gunships in Vietnam to helicopter aerobatics to today’s modern cockpits!
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!