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| Cameraman Brett Snyder, reporter Julie Silvers and Buddy Smith |
William "Buddy" Smith was a friend of mine in Jacksonville FL. Buddy and his wife owned a helicopter business at Craig Field, the only helicopter business in Jacksonville. As such, Buddy was kept busy. Considering he was only 34 years old, Buddy was doing pretty good for himself. They owned a Hughes 500C that he had bought and sold some years before. It had been shipped to Australia where it was involved in an accident. It was then shipped back and rebuilt in the US and bought again by Buddy.
Buddy had a great sense of humor and fellowship. In 1984-1986 when I knew Buddy, I was struggling with a faltering flying career that seemed to be going nowhere. Being broke most of the time, I was often invited over to Buddy's home where he would grill steaks for his group of friends. It was a time of sunshine and Supertramp. After work we often found ourselves at the local Applebee's drinking beers at the bar. I was struggling along with a charter operator called Capricorn Aviation, doing part time charters and flight instruction while stationed in Mayport on a Navy frigate, when we weren't at sea that is. Good times, uncertain times.
The owner of Capricorn was a guy named Cliff Baggett. Cliff bought a newer Isuzu pickup truck and one day he called Buddy wanting to borrow his VW van to go pick up some parts. "Why don't you use that new pickup truck of yours?" Buddy drawled. Cliff explained that the parts were very greasy and dirty and he didn't want to mess up his new truck, whereas Buddy's VW was already pretty greasy. So Buddy being the nice guy that he was said OK. That night Buddy and his friend Dave (owner of Northeast Aircraft Maintenance) were messing with their radio controlled race cars when they got an idea. They hooked up a servo to the ignition on the VW bus. The next day when Cliff drove off with the VW, Buddy threw the switch. The van died. Cliff is cranking it and trying to figure out what's wrong. Buddy throws the switch. The van fires up and Cliff drives off. So Dave and Buddy jump into Dave's car and head off to follow Cliff through town. Every so often they threw the switch and the van would die. Cliff would be looking under the dash, under the hood. Then it would fire up and off he'd go, only to have it quit again. At one intersection a state trooper was in the opposite lane going east while Cliff was going to turn left in front of him. When Cliff got the green arrow he started to go. Buddy killed it and it stopped right in front of the trooper. The light changes. The trooper is wanting to go. Cliff is sweating bullets, so he jumps out and pushes the van out of the intersection. Hops back in, vroom! Starts right up.
Went for a ride in the Hughes once. We lifted off with the low fuel light not just illuminated but flashing. "Is that important?" I asked nervously. "Oh that's fine, we're just going around the pattern once," Buddy said reassuringly. About three minutes later we were back on the ground. Not a big helicopter fan.
One night at the bar Cliff is bragging about his newest purchase, an old Piper Aztec. He's bragging about all the money he's going to make with it and you just watch, I'm gonna get rich! "I already got a charter in it! I'm taking the bankers to Tampa at 7am tomorrow! So there!" Finally Cliff staggers off home to get a few hours sleep. Drunk as skunks, Buddy and Dave stagger to the VW van and drive to the airport. Dave slides into the Aztec Cliff has just bought and fires it up. He taxis it to the far end of the airport and parks it out of sight. Dave and Buddy go home giggling. Next morning, Cliff races into the airport, late as usual. He's got about 15 minutes until the bankers arrive. No plane. He scrambled from one place to another, totally stumped as to what had become of his airplane. Finally he finds it, taxis down to Capricorn just as the bankers arrive. Everyone climbs on and Cliff heads off the Tampa. He said later "I didn't even have time to add gas. I was lucky to make it to Tampa with what I had."
Buddy got a contract with the local TV station, Channel 12, to use his helicopter exclusively for news and traffic reporting. So he painted it purple and they put a big 12 on the side. Three weeks later, June 16, 1986, Buddy and his TV crew are doing a live traffic report from his helicopter. His traffic reporter was a young woman named Julie, fresh out of college and scared to death of flying. As she described the traffic on I-95 live during the morning news, the image suddenly starts spinning. The tail rotor shaft had sheared, and this was bad. The helicopter went straight down and exploded. The cameraman was critically injured, but Buddy and the young reporter died. Our sunshine was gone. In an instant our lives changed forever. I'll never understand why the nicest people are always the first to go. We had a funeral for him in Atlanta. He'd worked briefly with the Atlanta PD for a while and at the funeral they did a flyover with several helicopters, and one peeled off as they came overhead, the Missing Man formation. There wasn't a dry eye in the place. I really miss you, Buddy.
