• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Scariest Day/Night Flying

MasterBates said:
Well, there was the time in a Bell 204 I lost the (ONLY!) engine at 300' ATL (Above Tree Level) and auto'd to a 0-0 at the treetops, and stuck it in tail first, ended up stuck in a big pine tree, (actually wedged between 2) and broke my femur falling out of the helo...
Click to expand...

Thought engines were built stone cold... just kidding...sir.



:D
 
busdriver said:
I was flying in Afghanistan on a medevac mission way up in the northern mountains near Bamiyan. The illum was basically zero with about a half mile of visibility under goggles and a mile or so from the flir. I had the pilot fly a "safe altitude" giving us 500' of clearance according to Falconview and DTED. Enroute the big challenge was keeping the pilot from descending closer to the terrain he could see, since he couldn't see the big ridge line in front of us. Once we got to the scene, we had to have the guys on the ground move the patient up to some guy's front porch since we had 15' hover power, and couldn't possibly hoist him out. On short final the guy decided to turn off his porch light, so we flew the approach into a blackhole and were greeted by a 10' nose up and 10' left slope in a total brownout. After we got the patient on board, we briefed that as we were taking off the pilot would turn left 20 degrees to avoid hitting the large castle type building directly off our nose (didn't see it prior to landing). After taking off, I had to repeat the moving map PAR trick for the next 2 hours until we got into the "Qalat valley" and could proceed direct RTB.

I have a definite love-hate relationship with that country.
Click to expand...


That's awesome. That's the first I've really heard of the Air Force helicopter effort. Obviously doing some great work. Thanks.
 
Busdriver,
Are you guys flying dustoff missions over there or just doing them as add-on missions? I was told that you guys are in the fold like the Navy bubbas in Kuwait.
 
In Afghanistan we're flying Medevac like the Navy is in Kuwait, at least similar. Although I heard the Navy didn't get to keep their guns, we do.

EDIT: I hate to admit it, but the above story isn't entirely accurate. I had a few at the bar before coming home that night and my brain decided to tell a different story when I got to the landing part. The zero vis moving map PAR part of the story was a different flight than the landing part, although I did that several times over there. The landing was at 8500', the zero vis night in the story was a bit lower at 6500'. All in all those two nights were pretty crappy. The actual landing on the night I started out talking about involved a couple go-arounds due to right drift at the bottom, nearly missing a building on one of them. The night we landed in some guy's back yard the vis was actually pretty good.

Sorry if that sounds dis-honest but I wanted to set the record straight.
 
Busdriver,
I'm sure you guys fall under some Army type command if you are doing med missions. Welcome to the suck. I'm flying for a med unit in the guard after enduring the big Army suck for some years.
No guns for the Army ( or Navy) med bubbas. Since we fly with the protective red cross nobody will shoot at us. No need for guns. Not really working out to well. Haji isn't a big fan of the Geneva Covention.
 
bobbybrock said:
Haji isn't a big fan of the Geneva Covention.
Click to expand...

or Crosses that remind them of the Crusades....

cus_zal.gif
 
bobbybrock said:
Since we fly with the protective red cross nobody will shoot at us. No need for guns.
Click to expand...

Some of the guys I flew with in the Reserves were 'Nam vets and they told me that the red cross was just a targeting aid for anybody shooting at them.

They also told me some less than nice stories about certain dustoff pilots.
 
The chain of command we flew with was a bit screwy. Basically, our squadron commander had final say regardless, but usually let the Army commander run with it. The irony of it all is that there is usually less BS with the Army than what we normally see when dealing with the JPRC and big blue Air Force. The problem is that the CAOC doesn't understand helo ops, and doesn't want us to do anything that doesn't involve picking up a CAOC pilot. Our normal deployment involves a lot of sitting alert and playing "mother may I?" with the CAOC. When we flew Medevac there were missions every day, we were usually AMC, and even when we weren't the Apache guys always let us call the shots and job satisfaction was high. Our normal gig is a constant political fight to get the decision making authority down the the squadron commander level.
 
Busdriver,
Just curious are you big Air Force or Guard/Reserve. My guard unit is slated for OEF in the diastance future. We will be with a big Army unit. I've done the OIF gig and the change of scenery might be nice. Not sure if our op tempo will be as high. Flew just about 700 hours in OIF and don't really want to fly anything close to that again. I don't want to get into any Op Sec topic so I won't ask about the op tempo but from your e-mail it seems pretty tame compared to OIF.
 
busdriver said:
The chain of command we flew with was a bit screwy. Basically, our squadron commander had final say regardless, but usually let the Army commander run with it. The irony of it all is that there is usually less BS with the Army than what we normally see when dealing with the JPRC and big blue Air Force. The problem is that the CAOC doesn't understand helo ops, and doesn't want us to do anything that doesn't involve picking up a CAOC pilot. Our normal deployment involves a lot of sitting alert and playing "mother may I?" with the CAOC. When we flew Medevac there were missions every day, we were usually AMC, and even when we weren't the Apache guys always let us call the shots and job satisfaction was high. Our normal gig is a constant political fight to get the decision making authority down the the squadron commander level.
Click to expand...

Bus,

Prolly don't want you to fly because they are afraid some Eagle driver will put a fork in you!

Nose
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top