Hellfire (12 page)
The Apache also had a Laser Warning Receiver System (LWRS)-two detectors above the engines and two on the fuselage sides-that would detect if the aircraft had been targeted by a laser-designator, the prelude to it being hit by a laser-guided missile.
All threat data were processed by a central computer which, having computed the type, range and bearing of the threat, would then decide the best countermeasure to defeat it. There were three switch settings in the cockpit-manual, semi-automatic and automatic-which allowed the pilot to decide what level of autonomy
he wanted to confer on the system. We were assured, however, that it worked extremely effectively in automatic mode and that, by and large, it was best to leave the system, not the pilot, to decide what kind of countermeasures to dispense and when.
Like HAL, the computer in
2001: A Space Odyssey
, the HIDAS’s (female) Voice Warning System (VWS) would alert the crew to any given threat. The information would also be displayed on one of the two multi-purpose displays; there were two MPDs in each cockpit-TV screens used to display flight, critical mission data and targeting images. Imminent threats-prioritised at any given moment-were displayed in positions relative to the aircraft.
It was probably inevitable that the VWS had already earned herself a nickname: Bitchin’ Betty.
Before I could ‘graduate’ from the course, I had to take an exam-and it wasn’t your average GCSE. We were to mount a national evacuation operation from an island-whose geography resembled Sicily-embroiled in civil unrest. Some Brits had been taken hostage. I was the commander of a force tasked to fly in, free them and fly them out.
Using the knowledge I’d amassed over the previous few months, I decided to mount an operation using Apaches, EA-6Bs, a B-2 Stealth Bomber and a C-130.
I jammed the island’s surveillance radars with the EA-6Bs and sent in the Apaches to take out the coastal radars. The B-2, so stealthy that it was largely invisible to radar anyway, then dropped a stick of satellite-guided 2,000-lb Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs on the command centres. Amidst the chaos, Special Forces were airdropped in to rescue the hostages. Once they had safely ex-filtrated the danger zone, I sent in the C-130 low level over the sea, chaperoned by Apaches, to airlift them out.
I now had an intuitive feel for how EW could master the battlefield. Although it wasn’t a dedicated EW platform-unlike the EA-
6B-the Apache was stuffed with so much electronic wizardry that it would enable the Army Air Corps to do things with helicopters it had never dreamed of before.
I did my EW instructor’s course in early 2001. With the arrival of the first Apaches in-country, there was a buzz about our quantum leap in capability. Even though I’d only ever sat in one once, nearly ten years earlier, I felt I was really beginning to know this machine, to understand how it worked.
I began a war of attrition on 3 Regiment’s Adjutant to get posted 200 miles further north, to Dishforth in North Yorkshire, the future home of the Apache. He wasn’t up for it and neither were the pen-pushers in Glasgow, but bull-headed perseverance finally got me within reach of the man I’d last crossed swords with during the finale of BATUS, Lieutenant Colonel Iain Thomson.
On the day of my interview, I popped in to pay my respects to the commander of 656 Squadron, who tipped me the wink that Tommo was in ebullient mood; he was still riding high on the news that his regiment had been selected to receive the most important piece of kit the army had procured in years. But while CO’s interviews were scheduled to last twenty minutes, I’d be lucky to get ten.
I knocked on his office door. There was a growl from within and I entered. Tommo barely glanced up as I snapped a salute.
‘Sit down, Mr Macy,’ he said. ‘Still bending the rules, are we?’
I said nothing, just prayed he wasn’t going to fob me off with a Lynx conversion course.
Tommo got up from behind his desk and strolled over to the window, hands behind his back. This was it: Win or lose time. I had to make every shot count.
I took a deep breath and told him what I’d been up to in the months since I’d last seen him, what I’d learned at every level of my
recent training, and the ideas I’d developed about Air Combat Tactics.
There were moments when he responded as if I was talking Swahili, but when I finally shut up his eyes shone. A week later I was making a PowerPoint presentation to the boss of Joint Helicopter Command (JHC), an amalgam of all the helicopter activity undertaken by the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Three days after that I ran through the presentation again for the Director of Army Aviation.
We ended up with a plan to establish a ‘purple’ ACT Instructor’s course; a course with a dual objective-to teach pilots of unarmed helicopters like the Gazelle and Chinook how to get into a furball and survive, and to teach gunship pilots the new world order.
At the end of 2001, Tommo fired out a questionnaire to all pilots in 9 Regiment: who
didn’t
want to do the Apache course and why? Surprisingly, not everybody was keen. I guess some thought,
why do I want to go and learn all this new stuff, when I’m already at the top of the tree? The money’s coming in, the wife’s happy…
Not me. I couldn’t wait.
The first Apache arrived at Middle Wallop in the summer of 2002 and the list of those selected for the Apache Conversion To Type (CTT) course number one was posted in Regimental Headquarters. My name was on it. There were twenty-one pilots earmarked for CTT1, one of whom would be the new CO, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Felton. So that left twenty operational pilots for 656 Squadron’s eight Apaches, enough for five flights: HQ Flight with the boss, Ops Officer and two QHIs, and four more, each manned by a flight commander, a specialist and two others.
With two seats in each bird, the minimum they needed was sixteen; in other words, not all of us would make it.
I knew that ten years’ flying experience didn’t mean I was a shoe-in. The Apache was an immensely complex machine to master; I needed to make myself indispensable. I had ticked the EW Officer box, but I had my eye on the Weapons Officer’s course. It could lead
to the sexiest job in Army aviation: Squadron Weapons Officer-guns, rockets and missiles; right up my street-and the more I learned now, the better.
Three of us from 656 were assigned to a bespoke Apache Weapons Officer’s course. My old mate Scottie would be there; he was going to become the Weapons Instructor for 673 Apache Training Squadron at Middle Wallop. It was billed as the most in-depth course we had ever attempted. If we managed to jump through every hoop, we’d end up advising on Apache weapons tactics to senior officers, teaching weapons and firing techniques to Apache aircrew, planning and running Apache live firing ranges, and designing and running Apache weapons missions in the Boeing simulators.
Captain Paul Mason started the first day as he meant to go on-grilling us on what we knew. I’d learned shit-loads and was keen to show him. There was no pass mark, thank God; we realised we actually knew jack-shit. I think I got my name right and that was about it.
Paul was
the
Apache weapons guru. A good-looking lad from the north-east, he wasn’t physically imposing, but boy, did he walk tall. He’d studied weapons, sights and sensors in the USA and decided there and then to rewrite the rulebook. This horrendously complex course was his baby.
It sounded as though it would take us half a lifetime to develop sufficient understanding to even come within reach of the hardware. He left us in no doubt that to become a weapons, sights and sensors instructor on this aircraft we would need a level of knowledge so comprehensive our brains would feel like they were about to explode. I immersed myself totally and quickly discovered what he meant.
The Cold War had fostered a proliferation of single-role platforms-ships, tanks and aircraft that were each designed for one
purpose and one purpose only. The Apache was one of the new breed of multi-role ISTAR asset-a relatively new acronym for Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance. It could be flown from either seat. The gunner sat up front, the pilot in the rear, but the pilot could activate the weapons and the gunner could fly the aircraft. A series of back-up systems ensured that if a critical piece of kit got hit-or even the pilot-the Apache could still get home.
The helmet-mounted display harmonised man and machine. The helmet itself was connected to the aircraft by two electrical leads: the first for comms, the second for the sensors. As soon as you powered up the aircraft, a pair of surveyors behind each seat transmitted pulsed infrared beams and the four helmet sensors let the system know the position of the pilot’s head relative to the cockpit.
You then stared down the Boresight Reticule Unit (BRU), a tube on top of the coaming which contained a series of concentric circles, through the crosshair within the monocle over your right eye. When your right eye, crosshair and bull’s-eye were perfectly aligned, the aircraft knew precisely where you were looking.
The monocle display could get pretty busy. It showed the direction in which the aircraft was headed, and where both crew members were looking. The pilot would generally have flight symbology-airspeed, altitude and distance to the next waypoint-displayed, and the gunner weapon symbology: to know ‘range to source’-the distance to whatever target he happened to be scoping. If either of us actioned a weapon, weapon symbology would automatically kick in.
Behind the symbology, we could view whatever was being looked at by the Target Acquisition and Designation Sight (TADS) System or the Pilot’s Night Vision System (PNVS) (known as the ‘Pinvis’). It was like viewing a movie, complete with subtitles, projected on a window, while still being able to see through to the outside world.
The TADS day television-DTV-camera image could also be displayed on the monocle, along with the Pinvis or TADS thermal image.
In thermal mode, vehicle engines and people would glow white, day or night; if it was cold enough, we could even trace footprints. The Apache gunner and pilot were now becoming like Schwarzenegger’s Terminator: hunting for the target in both normal and thermal vision simultaneously. This took multi-tasking to a new level: your right eye viewed targeting symbology and a computer-generated thermal picture of the world one inch away, while your left scanned the outside world in full colour at infinity.
We had two principal means of detecting targets-via the TADS and the Fire Control Radar. The FCR-the heart of the Longbow system of the ‘D’ model Apache-was awesome. Its Air Targeting Mode (air-to-air targeting) and Terrain Profile Mode (enhanced terrain avoidance navigation) were impressive enough, but the Ground Targeting Mode’s ‘RF missile engagement’ capacity blew my mind. In a double sweep of its antenna, lasting just three seconds, the FCR could recognise and detect 1,024 targets. Within the same three seconds, it would automatically prioritise the top 256, accurately locate them, automatically store their coordinates in its computer and then display them to the crew. It would display the top sixteen targets to the crew in priority of threat, selecting which to destroy and in what order.
When flying in squadron formation, the lead aircraft could coordinate with the others via a secure datalink-an unjammable, encrypted, wireless modem-to ensure that no two gunships went for the same target. Two Apaches would watch a flank each and cover the rear while the other six would be the attack aircraft. The gunner could break down the display into six ‘lanes’ on his MPD-the multi-purpose display TV on his instrument panel-selecting sixteen targets per lane. With the push of a button, each attacking
Apache would then receive their own share of the targets. A few seconds later ninety-six missiles would navigate towards their individual targets. Once the missiles had impacted at the point of maximum mass, each Apache sent its ‘shot-at’ file to the leader with the push of another button: not bad for one minute’s work.
The TADS turret was situated in the helicopter’s nose, and was the heart of the Apache’s day and night sensor capabilities. The Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) system lay behind a tinted window on the left. The gunner’s FLIR and the pilot’s Pinvis constituted cryogenically cooled optical cameras, highly sensitive to any heat above minus 200°C. They could find a mouse in a wheat field from a thousand metres.
The clear window on the right contained a laser designator, laser range finder, laser spot tracker, the Direct View Optics (DVO) and the DTV camera. The DVO was linked to the Optical Relay Tube (ORT)-the big metal block that jutted out about a foot from the gunner’s cockpit console.
When you placed your forehead on the ORT’s browpad and selected ‘DVO Mode’, you saw a magnified picture of the real world in glorious colour. There were two fields of view: wide and narrow.
The DVO confirmed vital recognition data to a Forward Air Controller (FAC), your crew member or other members of your flight-‘the target building has yellow window frames…’-preventing fratricide or collateral damage. The DVO was permanently slaved to the TADS; wherever the TADS led, the DVO followed.
On either side of the gunner’s ORT were what looked like steel PlayStation hand grips, covered in switches and buttons. They controlled sights, sensors and weapons. Each and every button had its own distinct feel and shape-one was smooth and concave, another was serrated and convex; another was shaped like a Chinese hat. You didn’t want to dispatch a missile at your own troops when you really intended to find out their range.
The DTV camera had three fields of view: wide, narrow and zoom. It was called ‘low-light TV’, but it wasn’t really for low light-it worked on a wavelength that allowed it to penetrate ‘battlefield obscurants’, primarily optimised to cut through dust and smoke.
Everything the TADS DTV, FLIR and FCR could see could be viewed in the monocle for quick targeting, on both MPDs for target detail and pinpoint accuracy, and on a small TV on the ORT.