Training the Best

In the spirit of my new career path, I've decided to rename and move the blog. Not like there's a legion of fans out there who are going to lose interest in the blog if I change the address. I think the fans I have are pretty dedicated.

The new address: http://helodriver.blogspot.com/

The new name will be "Beating The Air Into Submission" because that is the affectionate description given by helo pilots for how they defy physics on a daily basis. I first heard it in a quote from a salty old Marine Corps pilot; ”Live to fly and love what you fly regardless of whether it sucks and blows or beats the fucking air into submission." A cleaned up version of this quote is the tagline for my e-mails.

I'm starting to warm up to the idea of being a helo pilot. It's hard to let that jet guy mentality go and "resign" yourself to slogging it out with the unwashed helo masses. Jet guys like to think that they are smarter than the helo guys and they are better sticks; better pilots. They may be able to fly mach 2 and calculate fuel flow to the tenth of a pound per hour in their head, but I know a lot of the guys in jet school right now and I can tell you they are not higher level thinkers. What they proved by getting jet scores in primary is that they are better at the Navy system of flight school. They study the procedures quickly, commit them to memory well, and regurgitate them on demand. They play the game; they give the instructors what they want when they want it. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; that is the way to get through flight school the Navy way. It's probably the best way to go from college student to pilot in only six months.

But it's not the way I want to fly. Maybe I'm still too stubborn and I may have to get over that in helo advanced, I may have to play the game, but I'd rather have a feel for the aircraft and know what to do rather than applying mnemonics and knee jerk procedures. If one more fucking simulator instructor tells me to verbalize my 6Ts and every checkpoint I'm going to fucking choke him out with his fucking headset cord!

I know that most of the readers of this blog aren't going to enjoy reading this, but I like the low level danger of the helo mission. Jets live high, out of the reach of most anti-air artillery and missiles. Helos don't have that option so they do the next best thing; fly low and fast. I've gone as fast as 290mph in the T-34C but I was up at 8,000' and I can tell you that there is no sensation of speed. Now down low at 1000 feet and 200 miles per hour there is a bit of a sensation of speed. Take that down to 100 feet and the trees really start whipping by. Eventually I'll fly at that level with the lights out and night vision goggles. Every platform has its specialty and specific thrills and like I said, speed is relative.

So the new goal is the AH-1W Cobra. It's the Marine Corps' attack chopper and it is a nasty little bird. It is the smallest in the inventory but by far the deadliest. It has 2 hard points on each wing, each of them can carry either a rack of 4 Hellfire anti-tank missiles, 4 TOW anti-armor missiles, a pod of 70mm Hydra unguided rockets, or a pod of 127mm Zuni unguided rockets. Under the chin is a 20mm chain gun with 750 rounds on board that is slaved to the gunner's helmet so that where he looks, the gun points. Better be sure you really want to get his attention.

There is currently a development program underway to upgrade our entire fleet of Cobras to the AH-1Z Viper model. The most obvious advancement will be the new four blade configuration instead of the old two blades which will increase the max speed to 210 knots from 170 and will greatly reduce the noise produced by the Viper. Inside there will be transmission and engine upgrades along with the most advanced avionics and targeting systems. When it comes out, it will be the most technologically advanced and fastest attack helicopter in the world, more advanced than the much talked about Apache of the Army.

The second choice would be the CH-53E Super Stallion, the heavy lift helicopter of the Marine Corps and the most powerful helicopter in the western world. Three 4,380 horsepower GE tubofan engines drive the 80' diameter, seven blade rotor head which produces enough lift to allow this 33,000lb helicopter to lift 16 tons of external cargo. It is 100 feet long and almost thirty feet tall. I saw a window decal in Pensacola that covered almost the entire rear window of the jeep that it was on with a stenciled picture of a CH-53E and below it read "33,000 pounds of steel and sex appeal." Another sticker I saw somewhere read "Don't fuck with me, I can lift your house." One of our instructors at VT-28, a CH-53E pilot, when asked what he flew answered "god's machine." They may not make movies about heavy lift, but they are damn impressive aircraft.