Hellfire (16 page)
A year earlier, things had kicked off in Iraq. British troops stationed in and around Al-Amarah had found themselves locked in a brutal insurgency war. Armed with AK47s and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), the followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr had been in almost continuous contact with British Army troops since April 2004.
Things were also beginning to hot up in Afghanistan, where unrest fomented by a reconstituted Taliban-supposedly defeated in 2002-was beginning to destabilise the nascent democracy of Afghan president Hammid Karzai. To keep the peace, Britain had recently announced that it was due to send several thousand more troops to supplement the thousand or so it already had in-theatre.
It added fresh fuel to our efforts to master the Apache in all its complexity. I was appointed as the Squadron Weapons Officer-the SWO. My workload doubled overnight.
CTR saw us learning how to conduct single-ship ops in the Apache, then two-ship ops-flight missions-then finally whole squadron operations. The squadron, led by our OC, Major Black, was split into three flights and a Headquarters Flight, with two Apaches each. We formally completed CTR on 16 September 2004 and were awarded our Initial Operating Capability (IOC).
The IOC allowed us to deploy four Apaches to a semi-permissive environment for recce and strike but warned the government that we were unable to sustain any prolonged operations. As significant a milestone as it was, we were a long way from being combat-ready. We still needed to integrate with the rest of the British Army and the wider services.
From October onwards we exercised with everybody, starting with the RAF on Combined Air Operations. During ComAOs, Apaches and RAF combat jets learned how to mount escort missions for Chinooks, the RAF’s principal transport helicopter. We practised convoy protection missions-keeping watch over the life blood of logistics support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The first six months of 2005 we exercised with 16 Air Assault Brigade, the troops ready to deploy to any hot-spot at a moment’s notice. After a particularly gruelling exercise Lieutenant Colonel Felton gathered us together and announced that we had achieved TFAD. The Task Force Availability Date meant we could now deploy as a regiment to conduct operations in support of other units, but under the kind of restrictions that would take a brave government pen-pusher to sign off.
Soon afterwards we joined HMS
Ocean
off the coast of Northumberland for a couple of weeks of ship-borne takeoffs and deck landings. In late summer we joined it again off the south coast. We had learned how to fly to and from HMS
Ocean
in the North Sea; this visit was about learning how to fight from her. Over a month we flew numerous sorties from the helicopter support vessel to the Castle Martin weapons range in Wales, where we carried out attacks in representative combat conditions against targets on the ground. There wasn’t a firing range big enough in the UK to safely accommodate the range envelope of the Hellfire-but we shot off just about everything else.
We felt we’d got about as close as we could ever come, short of a real shooting war, to mastering the beast. As it turned out, this was just as well.
Lieutenant Colonel Felton had been briefed on the likelihood of our going to Afghanistan. In October, he was pretty much certain. As the weeks marched towards Christmas, it became the worst kept secret in the army.
With our short Christmas break behind us, the CO confirmed that 16 Air Assault Brigade had received orders to deploy to Afghanistan in support of the Afghan government. Along with 1310 Flight from RAF Odiham, 9 Regiment Army Air Corps was to form part of the Joint Helicopter Force (JHF) in support of the legendary 3 Para battlegroup.
The JHF would consist of eight Apaches and eight Chinooks; our brief was to provide four of each per day to whoever needed them, plus a couple of Lynx for good measure.
We were already gelling with 16 Air Assault Brigade. Our problem was that we hadn’t live-fired with them-and we hadn’t so much as seen a live Hellfire, let alone found somewhere big enough to fire it.
And we were due to deploy in May-just five months away.
Our imminent deployment changed one very significant aspect of our operations. Up until now we had been concentrating our training in the low-level environment. At less than a hundred feet off the deck we were an extremely hard target to hit. It didn’t matter if we were two Apaches or a formation of eight Chinooks and eight Apaches-we blasted across the European landscape as fast and as low as we could.
If someone had wanted to shoot us down they would have been hard pressed. The ground clutter-villages, towns, hedges, trees, woods and forests-would mask our arrival and departure both visually and audibly. By the time we were spotted or heard, we’d be gone. That, at least, was what the manual said-and we now had no reason to doubt it.
We received our briefings on Afghanistan in early January and were given our Area of Responsibility (AOR): Helmand Province-the lawless badlands in the south, the last known hideout of Osama Bin Laden.
We would be operating in a barren wasteland-the Dasht-e-Margo, or Desert of Death. The vast majority of our work would be carried out in this environment, but we were also likely to operate in the mountainous north. If we operated low level out
there we would be seen from miles away and have nowhere to hide.
Then we got our threat brief.
Supporting 3 Para’s battlegroup would entail escorting Chinooks into and out of austere locations laden with men and materiel. We would also be responsible for protecting the Paras should they get into any trouble. John Reid, the UK Secretary of State for Defence, had just visited Afghanistan and announced to the world that everything was going swimmingly; that 16 Brigade would probably be in and out of the country without firing a shot. Needless to say, anyone with a modicum of military experience ridiculed this statement. We hoped for the best but trained for the worst.
The Taliban, Al-Qaeda (AQ) and the HIG-the Hezb-I Islami Gulbuddin-were not known for their willingness to cooperate. We were briefed that there was a distinct possibility they would stand their ground and fight. Their easiest target-one that would cause the greatest amount of casualties for least effort-would be to shoot down a Chinook stuffed full of Paras. The unholy triumvirate knew that sending body bags home would sway UK public opinion against the war and hoped, in turn, that this might persuade Blair’s government to withdraw from Afghanistan.
We expected to have the following weapons fired at us: small arms (SA), machine guns (MGs), heavy machine guns (HMGs), rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), anti-aircraft guns (AA), and Man Portable Air Defence Systems (ManPADS)-shoulder-launched SAMs. Any one of these was more than capable of shooting us down if we stuck to the low-level environment.
If we operated above what was called the ‘small arms band’-the expanse of sky where SAs, MGs, HMGs and RPGs were deemed effective-we would go a long way to reduce that risk. The Apache’s HIDAS would take care of any SAMs. AA guns were the only remaining threat, but they were extremely difficult to operate, used
up lots of ammunition quickly and were hard to maintain. Lack of training and practice since the Russian invasion also meant they were unlikely to be used effectively. It didn’t take a genius to decide that flying at altitude would be the safest option-but the big questions still stood: could we fulfil the mission? Would we be able to get through the small arms band safely and do our job at altitude?
As a young Para I learned the art of shooting down helicopters and slow aircraft on Salisbury Plain by practising on target drones. We were shown how difficult it was to hit one if it varied its velocity, azimuth and elevation without warning. And while instructing Air Comat Tactics from 1998 to 2003, I demonstrated how to change direction, altitude and speed to throw off the hostile gunner. The trick was to swiftly recognise the threat.
We flew to Thumrait Airfield in Oman-where it was suitably hot, desiccated and mountainous-for the month-long Exercise Desert Eagle.
Billy was my instructor for dust-landings. We had bumped into each other on a number of occasions since my Basic Rotary Wing Course at Wallop. He’d been to the Apache academy in America before instructing on CTT1, and we were privileged to have him as our Squadron Qualified Helicopter Instructor (SQHI). He was very open and had the knack of getting the best out of people. ‘If you’ve done something wrong, if you’ve made a mistake, don’t hide it,’ he used to say. ‘Chances are, if you’re doing it, others might be too. You’ll be dealt with, but you won’t be punished; and you might just save someone’s life.’
When he wasn’t flying helicopters, Billy drove his Lambretta come rain or shine. If his life had been a movie, it would have been a cross between
Blue Thunder
and
Quadrophenia
, with a soundtrack by The Jam.
To perfect a dust-landing, Billy explained, we would need to employ what he called a ‘zero-zero’ technique: to reduce speed and
height simultaneously in a steep approach, and to avoid rolling forward by reaching zero speed and zero height at exactly the same time. We had to trust our symbology because we would lose all external references in the final stage. Dust-landings would be like ‘the bag’ on speed.
We gave it a spin the following morning. Billy warned me it was going to be alien and uncomfortable, quite unlike anything I’d done before. The dust and sand would disorientate me; if I didn’t focus 100 per cent on the symbology, I would crash. If I got distracted, I would lose all sense of my position relative to the landing zone. Any drift would end up, at best, with the Apache rolling onto its side, and thrashing itself to pieces. At worst, we might end upside down.
No pressure then.
Billy took the reins and selected a solitary rock in the otherwise featureless landscape to land beside. It scared the shit out of me. Forty feet up, I couldn’t see a thing outside the window and my PNVS had gone as blind as I had. I only knew we were down when there was a thump as we hit the ground firmly on all three wheels. When the dust cleared I could see he’d parked the Apache right next door to it.
‘Happy with that, Ed?’
‘You must be having a laugh. I want to see you do that again to make sure you weren’t using the Force…’
Billy fancied himself as a bit of a Han Solo, but he shook his head. ‘Stop being a wuss.’ He grinned. ‘Your go.’
Second time around he talked me through the final 100 feet.
‘Concentrate on the symbology and digital readouts, Ed. Watch your speed and height readouts and keep them coming down in tandem. You need to make constant cyclic, collective and pedal adjustments to maintain an accurate countdown. We can’t afford to come into the hover or have any speed on when we hit the ground.’
Righty-fucking-ho
…
Then, suddenly, it was like a bad day out with Lawrence of Arabia.
‘I’m losing all references, Billy.’
‘Me too, mate. Not a drama. Just hang in there and concentrate on the symbology. Passing forty-six feet, keep driving her forward…keep driving her down…I’m totally blind now…’
It was a fucking nightmare out there. I forced myself to focus on the velocity vector, heading and height in my monocle rather than the dust cloud billowing around us.
Billy’s calm voice helped me to stay in the zone.
‘While maintaining your scan on the heading and height and using control inputs, watch the symbology. Look at the velocity vector, Ed.’
The velocity vector-the line that told me my speed and direction of drift-edged back towards the centre circle in my monocle.
‘Keep it coming back towards the middle, but
do not
let it move out to the side. If you do, we’ll roll over. Keep bringing the velocity vector back using the cyclic and the height down with the collective. At the same time, keep an eye on the heading tape and adjust the pedals to make sure she doesn’t turn off heading. We’re getting into the ground cushion now, so force it down with the collective and keep her moving forward with the cyclic, constantly reducing the rate on both. You okay?’
I couldn’t see a fucking thing outside. ‘Five feet to go…’
‘Critical time, Ed…Any drift and we’re crashing this thing.’
Bloody marvellous.
I felt a bump as the Apache’s struts absorbed the impact.
‘And we’re down,’ Billy said as if we’d done nothing more arduous than reach the ground floor in a lift.
We sat stationary as the dust began to dissipate.
‘You’ve just got to trust your symbology, Billy,’ I said with newfound bravado.
Billy laughed. ‘Easy, eh?’
‘Easy enough, despite the last fifty-odd feet being totally blind.
‘Okay, smartarse, where’s the bloody rock, then?’
The air had now cleared sufficiently for me to have a good look around. I couldn’t see the bloody thing anywhere. We took off again and spotted it some distance from our wheel marks on the desert floor. I’d landed about forty feet too long.
‘If that was a landing point, you’d have missed it. It’s okay here, where there’s miles and miles of nothing, but if that was the only place to touch down-if it had any obstacles or worse still other aircraft around it-we would have crashed. Now let’s see how easy it really is when you have to touch down somewhere a little smaller than the Oman. I want you to land right next to the rock this time. Let’s go.’
An hour or so later, I was still at it. Each landing got harder and harder. I began to hit my spot, but had to pull away before touching down or we would have crashed. I could land okay elsewhere, but doing so where I wanted to in a dust storm proved to be ninja.
It took every last ounce of mental ability and skill I’d ever been blessed with to land next to our rock, but I managed it in the end.
When day turned to night, I had to do it again. I knew that darkness wouldn’t make a jot of difference to the shit conditions, but I still found myself hesitating. Billy rammed home the point. ‘Ed, it doesn’t matter if it’s daytime, night-time or the world’s turned pink. You’re blind the second you get into dust, and we fly by symbology alone. Got it?’