Even a blind Apache pilot can see at night

[pourts]

Having worked with the Army a couple of times, I wouldn't be surprised by this. And I'm not knocking the end-users like Lawman (although some of them obviously need to be educated, but as was said, that's fairly easy). The sheer amount of energy the Navy puts into CPC and PUKs/Supply is pretty amazing and I have a feeling Big Army doesn't quite understand what we do day-to-day.



I can think of one (or two) very specific reasons for you guys to have extra gas (and an extra missile or two) in the littoral environment. How likely will it be needed? Hopefully never, but there is a "requirement." Alas, we don't have a Secret Airwarriors, so I guess that discussion is over.

I seriously doubt there are any MEU or PHIBRON commanders saying "if only I had some Apaches, this straits transit would be so much easier."

Cobras and Apaches can both carry 8 hellfire. Short legs can be mitigated by refueling aboard ship. If things actually go kinetic, re-arming becomes the bigger issue. Its hard enough to operate using equipment designed for the job and guys that are familiar with the decades old doctrine and policies.

There is no logical reason to do this, besides having another bargaining chip when budget discussions come around.

Now, if they could keep pace with an Osprey for attached escort, or at least tank and cover their max range... now we are talking about a useful capability.

 

[pourts]

It was telling the first time I tried showing a Standardization Pilot (kind IP) a copy of the LHD specific NATOPS and getting a look of "why does this concern us?" Lots of institutional stupidity or unwillingness to realize we are guests on the boat. And yeah the monocle is our primary flight display. We have no HUD just the HMD and unless it's day time that pumping FLIR from the nose mounted TADS/PNVS is the primary sensor. We don't really use goggles in the community, and day time it's the same flight data minus the FLIR so I can't look through the cockpit with it like I can on sensor. Other problem... Nobody knows our deck landing limits. We have slope limits but even those aren't a hard fast number since the weight they used isn't reflective of any normal load catagory.

You don't use goggles? So the only way you can see that IR flash I am wearing is by looking at me with your sensor?

How do you fly in a section/ 2-ship/ whatever the army calls it without nav lights and overt strobe on and no NVGs?

Also, are you guys to the point yet where everybody in the community knows how to operate with a 9-line attack brief, or are guys still mostly expecting CCA/ 5 lines?

 

[Lawman]

You don't use goggles? So the only way you can see that IR flash I am wearing is by looking at me with your sensor?

How do you fly in a section/ 2-ship/ whatever the army calls it without nav lights and overt strobe on and no NVGs?

Also, are you guys to the point yet where everybody in the community knows how to operate with a 9-line attack brief, or are guys still mostly expecting CCA/ 5 lines?

How do you fly.... On FLIR. How is that harder? Nav lights aren't something we care about because why would I be that close to what I'm protecting? With the magnification of the target sight thats like trying to do CQB with a 300 win mag.We fly with goggles, but not as a primary sensor. It's a liability due to not having a heads up display or the ability to connect a NVG HUD. And I'm not blind as the guys who are flying goggles when the moon goes down. Believe me I've flown both goggles and system in theaters we operate, I'll take FLIR all day long. We have been doing it his way since the 80s. Our community is completely adapted to it even if it sounds like Greek to everybody else. It also means I can go black out and not be at a loss situationally. We did that over the Sangin when we kept getting shot at because they could see our strobes.

How do we see your strobes... We don't. We haven't for he entirety of our lives and we are only now getting a system to see you in the TADS display. Seeing ropes or strobes means putting goggles on my head, looking out the side window, figuring out where you are and hen trying to put he FLIR on something that looks similar too that. And all the while we have an extremely low friendly fire rate to the number of times we've been employed. Despite operating in a much less restrictive profile than everybody else doing CCA.

I'm a maneuver platform, not air delivered fires. Technically I don't need coordination with the ground element to shoot provided I know the GFC's scheme of maneuver. And 9 lines while we are proficient in them are overly restrictive to the point that they limit our effective employment. Unless your trying to coordinate a non permissive event with arty and other things there is no benefit to what we give the customer of a 9 line over a 5 line with the words "at my command" listed as a restriction. When we are all wagon wheeling round the stack doing key hole CAS and most of your data is stuff like "lines 1-3 NA" what are you expecting different from a 5 line. Especially when we start getting dumb weaponeering limitations like wanting rockets but no hellfire because of CDE concerns when one is entirely more accurate than the other despite the bigger warhead (no shit... Wanted me to shoot 2.75s in a village).

 

[Hotdogs]

You don't use goggles? So the only way you can see that IR flash I am wearing is by looking at me with your sensor?

How do you fly in a section/ 2-ship/ whatever the army calls it without nav lights and overt strobe on and no NVGs?

Also, are you guys to the point yet where everybody in the community knows how to operate with a 9-line attack brief, or are guys still mostly expecting CCA/ 5 lines?

How do we see your strobes... We don't. We haven't for he entirety of our lives and we are only now getting a system to see you in the TADS display. Seeing ropes or strobes means putting goggles on my head, looking out the side window, figuring out where you are and hen trying to put he FLIR on something that looks similar too that. And all the while we have an extremely low friendly fire rate to the number of times we've been employed. Despite operating in a much less restrictive profile than everybody else doing CCA.

I'm a maneuver platform, not air delivered fires. Technically I don't need coordination with the ground element to shoot provided I know the GFC's scheme of maneuver. And 9 lines while we are proficient in them are overly restrictive to the point that they limit our effective employment. Unless your trying to coordinate a non permissive event with arty and other things there is no benefit to what we give the customer of a 9 line over a 5 line with the words "at my command" listed as a restriction. When we are all wagon wheeling round the stack doing key hole CAS and most of your data is stuff like "lines 1-3 NA" what are you expecting different from a 5 line. Especially when we start getting dumb weaponeering limitations like wanting rockets but no hellfire because of CDE concerns when one is entirely more accurate than the other despite the bigger warhead (no shit... Wanted me to shoot 2.75s in a village).

Might be slight misunderstanding here. Apache pilots get FLIR imagery and aircraft data displayed into a reticle on their HMDs, (Right into their eyeballs) with rear seaters getting a larger field of view. Correct me if I am wrong Lawman - from what I understand about TADs there are actually two FLIR sensors on the same system allowing front and rear seaters to use separate slews and cueing - with the rear seater having a larger FOV (make sense sense he is at the controls more of the time). Which would allow for enough resolution and fidelity to determine rate of movement and aspect, potentially better than you would on goggles. Also not susceptible to the same ambient light considerations either. Not exactly inconceivable to do and Cobras do not have this capability, including Zulus. Six of one, half dozen of another. That being said, in the latest Bone frat incident FLIR vs NVGs and friendly marking was an underlying cause of the incident IIRC. I.e. Certain marks do not show up dependent on micron ranges - obviously a limitation.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/articl...mbs-killed-U-S-soldiers-after-location-mix-up

I'll take a 5 line all day vs a 9 line. 5 lines obviously being very similar to CCAs minus gameplan/correlation/cleared hot. Apaches aren't used to being in a combined arms arena like Marine Air with an almost certainty that there will be some type of IDF/UAS/FW coordination - which would lend to using a more restrictive/detailed attack brief like a 9 line. Given today's operating environment it's probably not a huge deal, but the same can't be said for a more kinetic/dynamic type of environment. Weaponeering belongs to the pilots and JTACs can throw out weird requests about ordnance. It's your job to tell them that the weapon to target match is jacked up and why. That's a JCAS understanding that the Army probably doesn't get a lot of exposure.

 

[Lawman]

If you've seen that ugly thing on the nose... Spiny part on the top is the Pilot Night Vision System (PNVS). 30x40 degree FOV. 120/second slew rate. Goes 90 degrees left and right. That's the primary flight sensor. It has no magnification. TADS is the big bucket with 2 eyes on the bottom. 1 side is the FLIR, the other is our Day TV/Laser. It has a wider limit of 120 degrees to each side but its only a 60 degree/second slew rate so flying off it takes a little control or you will get ahead of it fast moving your head around and give yourself some wicked spacial D. I can pump either system into either cockpit using a selector on the collective. Opposite seat gets the other sensor provided he has his system selected. Thats mostly just in case we have a sensor fail in flight or if we want to be nice/dickish during training and force a guy to use one or the other. Lot of times a new dude we will give them the PNVS at night so they dont get lost till they learn to move their head. Others we will force to use the TADS. We also can select multiple cue sources and we get a set of symbols to tell us where the opposite pilot, or the radar, or the RWR is looking.

Goggles just suck in this aircraft. Its built like an armored car in a lot of ways so from the front seat your have very little over the dash or close in sideways look out just due to the structure. In the back you get a little more side to side but out front doesnt improve much and you catch all the glare off the front seaters screens to look through. And like I said we lose all the data we use so heavily on the HMD and become a heads down aircraft. Its a shitty picture, but the one attached shows what our current PNVS looks like (right side). Its a TADS image so it lacks all the flight symbology, but thats what is being pumped into my eye and following my head for LOS.

 

[pourts]

I'll take a 5 line all day vs a 9 line. 5 lines obviously being very similar to CCAs minus gameplan/correlation/cleared hot. Apaches aren't used to being in a combined arms arena like Marine Air with an almost certainty that there will be some type of IDF/UAS/FW coordination - which would lend to using a more restrictive/detailed attack brief like a 9 line. Given today's operating environment it's probably not a huge deal, but the same can't be said for a more kinetic/dynamic type of environment. Weaponeering belongs to the pilots and JTACs can throw out weird requests about ordnance. It's your job to tell them that the weapon to target match is jacked up and why. That's a JCAS understanding that the Army probably doesn't get a lot of exposure.

Thanks for translating/ explaining the Apache sensor. We work with Marine skids all the time, but I have yet to work with Apaches.

 

[pourts]

How do you fly.... On FLIR. How is that harder? Nav lights aren't something we care about because why would I be that close to what I'm protecting? With the magnification of the target sight thats like trying to do CQB with a 300 win mag.We fly with goggles, but not as a primary sensor. It's a liability due to not having a heads up display or the ability to connect a NVG HUD. And I'm not blind as the guys who are flying goggles when the moon goes down. Believe me I've flown both goggles and system in theaters we operate, I'll take FLIR all day long. We have been doing it his way since the 80s. Our community is completely adapted to it even if it sounds like Greek to everybody else. It also means I can go black out and not be at a loss situationally. We did that over the Sangin when we kept getting shot at because they could see our strobes.

How do we see your strobes... We don't. We haven't for he entirety of our lives and we are only now getting a system to see you in the TADS display. Seeing ropes or strobes means putting goggles on my head, looking out the side window, figuring out where you are and hen trying to put he FLIR on something that looks similar too that. And all the while we have an extremely low friendly fire rate to the number of times we've been employed. Despite operating in a much less restrictive profile than everybody else doing CCA.

I'm a maneuver platform, not air delivered fires. Technically I don't need coordination with the ground element to shoot provided I know the GFC's scheme of maneuver. And 9 lines while we are proficient in them are overly restrictive to the point that they limit our effective employment. Unless your trying to coordinate a non permissive event with arty and other things there is no benefit to what we give the customer of a 9 line over a 5 line with the words "at my command" listed as a restriction. When we are all wagon wheeling round the stack doing key hole CAS and most of your data is stuff like "lines 1-3 NA" what are you expecting different from a 5 line. Especially when we start getting dumb weaponeering limitations like wanting rockets but no hellfire because of CDE concerns when one is entirely more accurate than the other despite the bigger warhead (no shit... Wanted me to shoot 2.75s in a village).

- I am surprised that your initial position was strobes on in Sangin.

- It would be nice if you had a capability to see an IR strobe, but really its not that big of a deal. I think many JTACs put too much faith in the strobe and the ability of all CAS players to immediately locate friendly positions because of it (looks like that was a factor in the B-1 frat as well). They are very difficult for FW to see, and they can always be blocked by trees, your gear, etc. If we ever fight anyone with NVGs, I am more likely to use an IR pointer for a few seconds here and there, than to turn an IR strobe on. It's much easier to forget that the strobe is on.

- I know what 5 lines are, and they are great. CCA is great. 9-lines are great. They are all used in different scenarios. They give the SUPPORTED unit more flexibility in how they want to utilize/ deconflict the various SUPPORTING units at their disposal. How do you execute a BOC hellfire LOAL using a 5-line attack brief? You don't, you use a 9-line. Excuse me for giving you egress instructions (line 9) that send you to HA Sally to keep you safe from that SA-8 and deconflict from that fixed-wing bomb fall line out of the east. 5 lines work, but they aren't the only play in the playbook. Part of the problem is that guys are so used to OEF tactics, that they begin to think that is doctrine, or the only way to do it. Same thing with FW and using keyhole all the time.

- Line 1-3 is never NA, thats JTAC sloppiness/ bad habit. The aircraft must from from somewhere (overhead, B-8, Emily, hasty firing point NT 89 08)

-There are some shitty JTACs out there, good on you for helping them help themselves by recommending a better weapon.

 

[Beans]

Wow, this thread has become very informative, but most of it has nothing to do w/ the subject. Mods, could you please split the Apache discussion off to help the young'ns in their searching?

 

[Lawman]

Wow, this thread has become very informative, but most of it has nothing to do w/ the subject. Mods, could you please split the Apache discussion off to help the young'ns in their searching?

2

 

[Gatordev]

Moved.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

So how do apaches fly form at night? Is it some kind of lead-trail all the time so you can fly off your sensors?

 

[jtmedli]

So how do apaches fly form at night? Is it some kind of lead-trail all the time so you can fly off your sensors?

I'm obviously not an Apache guy, but short answer without giving up TTPs/info: helos do it differently than jets. Flying right next to each other is a bad idea for wing when Muhammad is shooting an SA-(insert # here) at lead's tailpipe. Keeping some distance between lead and wing allows for more survivability and reaction/suppression from CSW and 30mm from the Apache bros.

 

[Hotdogs]

How do we see your strobes... We don't. We haven't for he entirety of our lives and we are only now getting a system to see you in the TADS display. Seeing ropes or strobes means putting goggles on my head, looking out the side window, figuring out where you are and hen trying to put he FLIR on something that looks similar too that.

Just caught this...

....and yes it can be a pain in the ass. Especially for newer co-pilots.

What you described is exactly what legacy Cobra pilots have been doing since forever. Newer Whiskeys w/ HDTS birds and Zulus can cue based off a LOS from the DDM/NDM (our version of HMDs) and put the TSS/NTSU FLIR and/or turret in the vicinity of the target/contact. Those systems also allow for more accurate boresighting compared to the previous mechanical HSS installed on old Whiskey Cobras. Which was never guaranteed to work, was inaccurate, and generally a pain in the ass to use. We don't use the FLIR to fly form either. The old whiskey HSS rail attached to the canopy however is a great tool to hit the front seater in the head with if he's being a jackass. Technique only. As you can see the Cobra while much sexier than the F models the Army flew into the 90s, it is an abortion of collected and retrofitted systems smashed into an airframe. While it may have saved money in the short term, it is no where near what the Y/Z H-1s or E model Apaches can do with the integration of their systems.

 

[pourts]

Just caught this...

....and yes it can be a pain in the ass. Especially for newer co-pilots.

What you described is exactly what legacy Cobra pilots have been doing since forever. Newer Whiskeys w/ HDTS birds and Zulus can cue based off a LOS from the DDM/NDM (our version of HMDs) and put the TSS/NTSU FLIR and/or turret in the vicinity of the target/contact. Those systems also allow for more accurate boresighting compared to the previous mechanical HSS installed on old Whiskey Cobras. Which was never guaranteed to work, was inaccurate, and generally a pain in the ass to use. We don't use the FLIR to fly form either. The old whiskey HSS rail attached to the canopy however is a great tool to hit the front seater in the head with if he's being a jackass. Technique only. As you can see the Cobra while much sexier than the F models the Army flew into the 90s, it is an abortion of collected and retrofitted systems smashed into an airframe. While it may have saved money in the short term, it is no where near what the Y/Z H-1s or E model Apaches can do with the integration of their systems.

The key difference being, in the Cobra the pilot (though maybe not the front seater) will fly with your goggles on most of the time at night, no?

 

[Lawman]

So how do apaches fly form at night? Is it some kind of lead-trail all the time so you can fly off your sensors?

Typically lead just flies how he would fly and trail is in NVS Free/Combat Cruise. (IE get behind him enough to keep him within a comfortable field of view, altitude and distance to provide immediate cover on his tail. Sometimes we will limit you to a side, but thats all METTC and all. Escorts are a bit different, usually we will get higher so we have the ability to shoot more than just whats behind/beside the assault package. This is also why we hate trying to fly a true Combat Spread since you literally have to get your head a solid 90 degrees left/right to see your wingman and if you get too far forward that isnt enough either.

Getting ultra close makes for pretty landings and such. And it makes sense for the Air Assault platforms to tighten up so they can get the maximum number of aircraft on the ground in a given space with minimal separation of time. But from a standpoint of shooting with our systems, getting close in to each other actually severely limits us because we were designed for standoff. Its very easy due the magnification of the TADS to get soda strawed on your delivery. We could shoot HMD gun on the fly by just doing the look and kill thing, but its not very accurate and the dispersion is something terrible. It also has big issues with ranging when your in broken terrain since its limited to flat earth geometry. While that makes for cool videos on the History channel the only real reason to have that is for a reactionary snapshot like sitting in a Battle Position and having some dipshit walk out of the tree line and point an RPG at you. Its a short range only solution.