About the Vietnam Helicopter Pilot Memorial Map
The Vietnam Helicopter Pilot Memorial Map plots the U.S. helicopter losses of the Vietnam War (1960–1975) — remembering the pilots, crew, and passengers aboard, incident by incident.
The data
Records are drawn from the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) loss database and enriched with memorial details from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's Wall of Faces. Each incident links back to its source records.
How it started
Nearly 12,000 helicopters were used during the Vietnam Conflict. They accumulated over 10,000,000 flight hours and 5,086 were destroyed. Of the 1,100 OH-6A Light Observation Scout helicopters in service 80% were destroyed. Of the 950 AH-1G Cobras utilized, 30% were destroyed. The 7,013 Hueys flew over 7,500,000 hours in service with 47% being lost. 40,000 Helicopter Pilots served in the Vietnam conflict and over 2,100 were killed, nearly twice the casualty rate of the average Vietnam participant.
In 2010, Ron Bower, of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilot’s Association (VHPA) suggested that the society collect information for a “Memory Map” to collect “war stories” and artifacts from members. I worked with Ron and showed that Google Maps was an ideal Geographic Information Service (GIS) system for our data. At that time, the association had neither the storage space nor the personnel to organize such a project so the "Memory Map" died.
The people behind it
_At the 2023 VHPA reunion in San Antonio, I was talking with past-VPHA President Mike Law and he was saying how he missed having a Map like Ron Bower proposed. I reviewed my notes and with the help of past-VHPA President Gary Roush I began to develop a plan for a “Memorial Map”. The data base for this map is the result of many unknown volunteers who worked with Gary Roush for over 50 years filing Freedom of Information Acts to obtain incident reports. Without the effort of the selfless people, this unique database would not exist.
Future goals
In the past year, I have become aware that increasing numbers of people using the map are not former military but historians or younger family members trying to learn more about the Vietnam Conflict. While the current “Memory Map” helps veterans remember their tour(s) of duty, historians and family members have trouble navigating this map. With the help of artificial intelligence, I will be replacing the “Memory Map” with a more easily searchable map.
Add where the project is headed.
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