Ralph Hood is off on his next great adventure, the latest in a lifetime of adventures he shrugs off as just ordinary stuff.

DRC/Gary Payne

Ralph Hood has flown helicopters for most of his life, for both the military and private companies. Hood, who’s nearly 63, is now training to fly personnel and supplies to ships.

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At 62, when most men’s minds are on retirement, he’s learning to fly a helicopter with controls that work exactly opposite to those he’s flown most of his life. He’s also learning how to survive a crash into the ocean.

“I can’t sit home and do nothing,” Hood said. “I can’t go out and play golf every day. I’d go crazy.”

He has been flying for Air-Evac Lifeteam, an air ambulance company that covers rural Denton County and most of North Texas and South Oklahoma, for several months. But then he heard about a job flying French-made Puma helicopters on a contract basis for the Navy. It was a challenge he couldn’t resist.

Hood is a lifetime military man. He was born in England while his father was stationed there. The oldest of seven children, he grew up all over the world.

He was a member of ROTC while he earned a business degree at Oklahoma State University, where he met his wife, Betty. Straight out of the university, he went into the Army. And soon he was flying missions into Vietnam in Chinook helicopters.

He brought troops into Vietnam. He brought dead soldiers out. Once he and a “bird” full of soldiers were shot down. None of them was injured.

“It was fine,” Hood said in his typical self-deprecating way. “We all got out and just waited to get picked up.”

He remained on active duty for nine years and then joined the National Guard. He was called up for Operation Desert Storm and flew helicopters during that war. He’s been in the military for 29 years altogether.

“War. It’s part of the deal,” he said. “It’s a commitment. I did what was expected of me. That’s the road I took.”

Through the years, he and his wife had two children. They have lived just west of Denton for 10 years. Betty Hood remembers that they lived in 16 different houses in the nine years he was full-time Army.

“And for 26 out of our 41 anniversaries, he’s been either out of state or out of the country,” she recalled.

“I didn’t remember that,” her husband said.

“I did. And you’re going to miss the next one too,” she said good-naturedly.

It’s always been helicopters for Ralph Hood. They’re more challenging than fixed-wing planes, but more dangerous.

“I’d be bored flying an airplane. When you fly a helicopter, you have both hands and both feet going in opposing directions,” he said. “I don’t take myself too seriously. But I am competitive to a degree in everything I do. Flying can be a very stressful environment. But then, so can golf.”

In civilian life, Hood was a human resources department manager for many years. That was the mundane part of his life. The other part was spent on National Guard duty, flying.

He retired from the National Guard in 2001 and tried to settle into being a full-time civilian. It didn’t work. He was miserable.

“I asked him what do you really want to do?” his wife said. “He said, ‘Fly helicopters.’ I said, ‘Go fly, then.’ And he did.”

The new job is with Evergreen International Aviation Inc. He will be working under a contract with the government to fly personnel from ship to ship, along with supplies, fuel, and anything else a ship needs to keep cruising. The ships are bound for the Middle East, and Hood will be based in Guam, flying mostly in the Pacific. He’ll work for six weeks and then have six weeks off.

The big four-bladed French Puma craft operate with rotors moving in the opposite direction of those on an American craft, and the controls also must be operated diametrically opposite.

Hood spent two weeks in Norway flying in a simulator to hone those skills. Next, he’s going to Norfolk, Va., to learn firefighting before taking the first stint at the Puma controls.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything special,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of fun doing what I’ve done. I’m going to keep on doing it for — I don’t know. We’ll see how it works out.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .