FEBRUARY 10, 2010
GOLD MONKEY! GOLD MONKEY! So what are we talking about here?  We're talking field boundary rules, and we need to work together to police ourselves!
	At the last couple of regular club meetings, there was discussion of the need to ensure we all stay within the flight boundaries designated for our field.  When we fly outside our boundaries, we run the risk of increased liabilities and personal hazards. But nobody flies outside the designated boundaries, right? ? ?   Well, we might all admit we do sometimes - even if it's unintentional.  So in the spirit of policing ourselves, the club agreed to adopt a policy we call "Gold Monkey!" Here's how it works: The next time you observe someone flying outside the boundaries, just holler up loud and clear:  "Gold Monkey!"   Upon hearing that funny phrase, all pilots currently having planes in flight should voluntarily check their own flight patterns and bring their birds in line. The idea is to not single anyone out, suffer embarassment, or invite scorn.  Let's use this call-out in the spirit intended, and work together to avoid situations that put our club, our AMA license, and ability to fly at the fairgrounds in the future.  One bad incident is too many, and it could shut us down! Comments????  Write your webmaster and I'll pass your note along. . . Need to take a good look at the boundaries?  They're posted at the field!!!
	THE REAL STORY BEHIND "GOLD MONKEY" . . . Our friend Tom O has recanted here his experience with the issue of flying out of bounds in hostile areas.  As a former Army pilot, he explains what the phrase means and the implications of ignoring the flight boundaries of the day. . .
	Golden Monkeys were once native, prior to the Korean War, to most of Korea and Southern China and are believed to still thrive today in the uninhabited areas of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. Whether we like it or not, every aspect of our life is governed by boundaries.  Boundaries could be something simple like our backyard, or an international border. One of the most well known boundaries in the modern world is the 38th Parallel on the Korean Peninsula. This is a true story, it does not have a good ending, but hopefully we can learn from it. In April of 1994 I arrived in South Korea as a Senior Instructor Pilot with 5-501st Aviation Regiment, the first Korean based US Army Aviation Unit with AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopters. As an Senior Instructor Pilot I had only one month to learn how to navigate, from memory without a map, the entire 100 mile long No-Fly Line (NFL). The NFL was an boundary located 2000 meters south of the Military Demarcation Line (the actual border separating North and South Korea). As if it was not hard enough I had to be able to do it from both directions, east to west and west to east. The Korean DMZ is the most heavily armed region on the planet, nothing else comes close. The South Koreans have more than 600,000 troops stationed there, the North Korean Army is estimated to have as many as two million troops stationed on the northern side of the DMZ. My first mission along the DMZ was sobering, in our pre-mission brief we were told that the North Koreans would not fire on us if we accidentally crossed into North Korea, but the second we tried to fly out they would shoot us down. In other words, you can fly in, but you cannot leave.  In an effort to prevent friendly aircraft from accidentally straying into North Korea a code word was devised to warn all friendly aircraft of an impending border incursion. The code word was "Gold Monkey." If South Korean forces detected a friendly aircraft on radar crossing the NFL to the north they would broadcast the code word "Gold Monkey" on Guard (121.5 VHF, 243 UHF), a frequency monitored by all aircraft. As a pilot flying in Korea if you are flying within 15 km of the DMZ and you hear the code word "Gold Monkey" you are required to turn to a heading of 180 degrees and fly south until the word of day is subsequently broadcast. The North Koreans, being crafty little devils, would occasionally broadcast "Gold Monkey" just to mess with us! Seven months after I arrived in Korea, on December 17, 1994 a US Army OH-58 Scout helicopter belonging to a sister unit was flying along the DMZ and accidentally strayed into North Korean airspace.  Because they were below radar there was no "Gold Monkey" warning on the radio. True to the spoken word, the North Koreans allowed the aircraft to fly 2500 meters (~1.5 miles) into North Korea, when the aircraft turned south to exit it was shot down with 23mm AAA (Anti-Aircraft-Artillery) and a SA-17 (Surface to Air shoulder-fired, guided missile). My friend, the co-pilot David Hilemon, was killed.  David was great pilot, I had given him many check rides and he had always done well. The pilot, Bobby Hall, survived the crash and was captured by the North Koreans and held prisoner for 13 very tense days. We were very lucky to avoid an all out military confrontation over the incident. On New Years Day another good friend of mine and fellow AH-64 pilot, Jody Bridgeforth, went to North Korea to retrieve David's body and accompanied it back to the United States for burial. Afterwards I continued to fly and train pilots along the DMZ logging more than 500 hours during my year there. The moral of this story is that there are always two sides to every boundary, just because the violation was unintentional does not mean no one gets hurt. I realize there is a world of difference between flying armed combat helicopters on the DMZ and flying model airplanes at the Clark County Fairgrounds, but model airplanes are very capable of causing serious injury or death just the same. If you see someone flying beyond the field boundaries simply shout "Gold Monkey!"  If you are flying and you hear "Gold Monkey" verify that you are not flying outside the field boundary - if you are not sure turn back towards the field and sort it out. Tom O, Safety Coordinator, CCRCS
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