by Ed Macy
‘A Load Charlie for you, isn’t it sir?’
‘Yes thanks, mate. Just sightseeing today.’
Load Alpha was just Hellfire, Load Bravo only rockets. Load Charlie was our default load – a split weapons load on the pylons: two out of the four on the wings held Hellfire rails, the other two rocket pods. What you took depended on the mission. We weren’t going to put any rounds down today, but we never left base without a full complement just in case.
I did a quick walk around to double check that the protective covers had been removed from the weapons, intakes and exhausts.
‘All okay with the aircraft?’
‘She’s gleaming, sir. Cryptos loaded; be nice to her.’
I clambered up the right side of the Apache’s alloy skin, using the grab bars, and lifted up the back-seater’s heavy canopy door. It clicked open and hung there as I contorted myself onto the high, firm, flat seat. The Boss was already in.
Thirty minutes to takeoff.
The rear seat of an Apache was like a throne, high above the worker bees buzzing around below. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as comfortable. The foam pads on the seat and back were really tasty when we first got the Apaches, but after three years of heavily laden arses they had completely flattened. Anything more than a few hours in the cockpit these days and it felt like you were perched on a bag of golf balls. That was when the arse dance began, moving from one cheek to the other to try to alleviate the pain. Some of the guys resorted to half inflated therma-rest pillows.
The cockpit was like a sauna. The Afghan sun had beaten down on it all morning. Beads of sweat swelled up on my brow. A bank of controls and instruments faced me: buttons, switches and knobs of every shape and size – 227 in total, and every one designed to feel different so you could recognise them in the dark. Most of them were dual-or triple-purpose, which gave them a total of 443 different positions. Every action could require a combination of button pushes, so the number of potential combinations ran into the thousands.
One five-inch-square Multi Purpose Display screen sat each side of the control bank. We could bring up anything we liked on them, from the TV images filmed by the TADS lenses, to the digital script and diagrams of whatever we asked of the on-board computers. There were well over 1,500 different pages – engine pages, fuel pages, comms pages, weapons pages and radar pages. To the far left of the control bank was an alphabetical keyboard for typing data into the computers, or texting messages between Apaches.
A pioneering helicopter pilot of the 1930s would still have recognised the pedals, cyclic stick between my legs (controlling speed and direction – gripped by my right hand) and the collective lever below my left elbow (for height and power – gripped by my left). But that would be about it. He’d be mighty confused by the myriad triggers and buttons on both.
Because there were so many systems to test and configurations to set, achieving takeoff from cold required more than 1,000 button pushes. It took thirty minutes without any snags, fifteen at a mad push. Any quicker and we’d be switching things on in mid-air without knowing if they were going to work.
I inserted a key into the master ignition switch on a panel to the left of the collective then twisted the switch from ‘Off ’ to ‘Battery’. A few seconds’ pause as the battery leaked life into the beast, then the distinctive ‘click-click’ of the relays. The Up Front Display (UFD) – a panel top right of the controls showing critical information and faults digitally – lit up. The machine was stirring.
I closed the canopy door and flipped my helmet onto my head, making sure that my ears didn’t fold inside it (that would be agony in half an hour) and tightened the chinstrap. I plugged in the communication cord and the ongoing conversations of four different VHF / UHF and FM radio channels burst into life inside my helmet. The four channels were: the Joint Terminal Attack Controller’s net for us to communicate with the guys on the ground who needed us; the Coalition air net in Helmand so we could talk to other aircraft; the net back to the JHF; and the intra-Apache net to talk or send data to our wingmen and other Apaches in the squadron. In addition, there was a permanently open internal intercom for the two pilots to speak to each other. The Boss’s was the fifth voice in my ear. The sixth and seventh voices boomed through. ‘This is right wing; how do you read, sir?’
‘Nice and clear, Si. What about me?’
‘Clear as a bell, sir. Left wing check in.’
‘Loud and clear, Corporal Hambly.’
‘You got him, sir.’
‘I hear the left wing, Si. Let’s rock and roll.’
Luckily, everyone didn’t always speak at once – though they could. A volume control allowed me to turn up the net most relevant to me at any particular moment.
‘Pylons, stabilator, Auxiliary Power Unit; clear, Si?’
‘Pylons, stab and APU all clear. Clear to start, sir.’
I pressed the APU button below the ignition switch. A loud whine as the APU engine turned over, then the distinctive ticking of the igniters. The APU burst into life followed by a rush of air from the four gaspers positioned around the cockpit. The air was hot; no air con yet.
I grabbed the cyclic stick and yelped. I’d taken my gloves off to pull on my helmet and forgotten the stick had been sunbathing all morning. A quick glance confirmed the beginnings of a pale white blister between my thumb and forefinger. Shit; I’d have to fly the whole sortie with pressure against it.
My rage made me think of my daughter; she’d be laughing her head off if she saw me now. My daughter thought it was hilarious when I hurt myself because I was normally such a hard bugger. Me in pain, face contorted, fighting the urge to curse, made her sides split. That’s daughters for you.
It was an even numbered day today.
‘Starting number two, Si?’
We always matched the engine starting sequence to odd and even days. It meant one never worked harder than the other in the long run.
‘Clear to start number two, sir.’
The heat in the cockpit was close to unbearable. All the hot wiring, glues, resins, metals and rubber cosseted inside my glass cocoon exuded their own distinctive scent. I was still sweating like a pig.
I pushed the right hand Engine Power Lever forward to ‘Idle’ and the starboard engine fired up. Then a slow, smooth push on the EPL, fully forward. As the engine pitch grew the tail rotor started up thirty-five feet behind me and the four main rotor blades begun to move above my head, slowly at first, and then ever faster, thudding rhythmically as the blades started to catch the air.
My eyes began to sting as the first droplets of sweat trickled into them from my brow. I wished the air con would hurry up.
‘Starting number one.’
‘Clear to start number one, sir.’
Ten seconds later the thuds were too quick to count and the rotors began a deafening hum.
Twenty-two minutes to takeoff.
I attached my monocle and bore-sighted my helmet. It allowed me to snap shoot at any target on the ground simply by looking at it and pulling the trigger. Tiny infrared sensors positioned around the cockpit detected the exact position of the crosshairs at the centre of my monocle and the computer directed the cannon accordingly. The Apache didn’t even need to be facing the target. It was a neat trick.
The sweat finally began to cool on my brow as the air con won its battle with the sun’s rays. I started testing the systems.
Fifteen minutes to takeoff.
My hands and eyes swept around the cockpit. The Boss and I kept up a constant dialogue as we worked. Our rotor blades thundered menacingly above the eight man arming team. Three … two … one … ten minutes to lift.
‘Ugly Five One on one.’ I flicked to the second radio. ‘On two.’ Flicked to the third. ‘On three.’ Flicked to the last, our data radio, and sent our digital position.
Billy replied, ‘Ugly Five Zero on one … on two … on three.’ An icon appeared on the MPD showing the position of his Apache.
‘Good
Data. Ready.’ All four radios and data were working.
Billy replied with a ‘click-click’ over the radio, shorthand for affirmative.
Pushing the APU button again switched it off. ‘APU off; pins, cords and chocks please, Simon.’
His team prepared the aircraft for moving and I opened my door to receive the arming pin. The flares and weapons were now armed and we were ready to go.
‘Have a good trip, sirs.’ Simon disconnected from the right wing and his team moved to the missile and rocket racks. For the first time since we’d arrived, we owned the Apache.
‘Your lead, Billy.’
Another double click.
Two minutes and thirty seconds to takeoff.
My left hand moved down the collective to the flying grip. Looking straight ahead as my right eye focused on the flight symbology projected into the monocle, I gave the flying grip a single twist to the right, removing the collective’s friction lock. The torque – the measurement of engine power output in helicopter flight – indicated 21 per cent. That was the norm while stationary on the ground, rotor blades flat – the minimum angle of pitch.
My feet pressed on the very top of both directional foot pedals at the same time until I heard a light thud.
‘Parking brake off? Tail wheel locked?’
The final two questions on the Boss’s checklist. I did my visual check. ‘The parking brake is off, the handle is in, tail wheel is locked and the light is out.’
My right eye focused on the torque and my left watched Billy and Carl’s aircraft pull out of the loading bay beside us and taxi away. My left hand was poised to pull up the collective, my right wrapped firmly around the cyclic, ready to push forward.
Thirty seconds to takeoff.
With fifty metres between us and Billy, I lifted the collective and depressed my left pedal to increase power to the tail rotor and balance us up against the increased force of the turning rotor blades. Left unchecked, the main blades would try to turn our nose to the right, leaning the Apache dangerously over to one side. The torque climbed to 35 per cent.
With a gentle push of the cyclic control stick away from my body the main blades tipped and pulled the machine slowly forward. A touch on the toe brakes at the top of the pedals to test the brakes then we taxied onto our miniature runway for a running takeoff.
Heat and altitude both reduced the amount of power a helicopter engine could generate. Camp Bastion was long on both. We could lift vertically, but it was a major struggle if we carried a full load of ammunition and fuel. Taking a run at it gave us translational lift, the kind fixed-wing aircraft used.
Fifteen seconds to takeoff.
I pointed our nose straight down the runway, with Billy and Carl still fifty metres ahead of us, and pulled a little more pitch. The machine picked up pace nicely. Once the torque hit 65 per cent, I pushed the trim button to hold the collective and cyclic in place. It was sufficient power to get us up. The speed symbol in my right eye hit twenty knots and continued to climb.
Six seconds to takeoff.
Eighty metres down the runway, the tail wheel lifted off it. At thirty-five knots she wanted to fly, but I held her down with a tiny reduction of power and a shift of the cyclic. It wasn’t time yet.
Two seconds to takeoff.
I was watching Carl’s disc intently … Now … It tipped forward and I raised the collective again and the main wheels left the ground. We lifted in perfect unison. Good. I was pleased I’d got it spot on. If you set the right tone at the start of a mission you’d remain accurate throughout.
‘Your ASE, Boss.’
The Boss armed the aircraft’s Aircraft Survival Equipment (ASE) to protect us against SAMs.
‘Okay, countermeasures set; ASE is on semi-automatic.’
‘Zero Charlie this is Ugly Five Zero and Ugly Five One. Wheels off at your location as fragged, over.’
‘Zero Charlie, Roger. Out.’
I pulled up the navigation page on the left hand MPD and selected the pre-planned route heading for Sangin, the first stop on our tour. A glance through the monocle confirmed: ‘Eighteen minutes to arrival.’
We were seventy-five feet above the desert floor and heading north-east, the camp’s perimeter fence two hundred metres behind us. A quick trim with the right thumb and we accelerated to a cruising speed of 120 knots. The Boss selected automatic on the ASE. The Apache would, we hoped, keep us safe from surface-to-air missiles. SAMs were the greatest threat to us at the heights we operated.
Billy and Carl were a safe distance in front of us to avoid collision. Billy came on the radio.
‘Ugly Five One, this is Ugly Five Zero. High-high, five-five and six-zero.’
‘High-high, five-five, six-zero copied.’
Billy wanted us to climb high. Him to 5,500 feet and us to 6,000 feet – always a small difference in height too, for safety. The Boss glanced up through the canopy’s bulletproof window.
‘Clear above.’
‘Copied. Climbing.’
I pulled back on the cyclic and hard on the collective while depressing my left pedal. We lost our stomachs and soared.
Despite its gargantuan combat weight, the Apache’s mighty Rolls Royce engines made it just as agile and manoeuvrable as any chopper the army had ever had. Turning at up to 38,300 rpm, they pumped out an incredible 2,240 shaft horse power – making the Apache twenty-two times more powerful than a Porsche 911.
The Apache could climb in excess of 5,000 feet a minute, including a one-off, ninety-degree, nose-up vertical climb of 1,000 feet. And it could do a 360-degree loop, barrel roll or a wing over nose dive – every stunt manoeuvre in the book. Not moves I’ve ever carried out, of course; heaven forbid – especially with Sky Cop as my wingman.
Sixty seconds or so later, we were at Billy’s nominated cruising altitude. It was a terrific feeling to be up there again, over that menacingly beautiful landscape, and in that extraordinary machine. Ten minutes into the flight, I felt as confident at the controls as I had on the day I left in August. I was right back in the zone again.
Despite the years of training, it had still taken me a good six weeks of hard fighting on the first tour before I really felt the exhilaration of being at one with the machine.
When you drive a new car, you’re slow and cautious. You need to think about every action, from where the indicators are to how far you are from the gatepost. After you’ve driven it for a while, you don’t have to think; you just end up at home without having thought of driving once.
It was the same with the Apache, but on a grander scale. Halfway through the first tour, whatever I wanted to do in the aircraft, I did. From that moment onwards I didn’t need to think how to fly and shoot because my fingers, arms and legs were already working in perfect harmony with my mind. I was no longer strapped to the Apache; the Apache was strapped to me.
Almost all of the pilots were there by the end of the tour. But none of that meant that we had lost respect for the daunting reality of having so much firepower at our finger tips. Not for one moment, then or since. Nobody in that war had more potential to do as much damage to human life. With that power came an equal amount of responsibility. We were fearful of being seen as gung-ho; US Apache pilots had that reputation and we didn’t want to follow suit. Every single round we put down we put down with good reason; killing someone was a serious business.
As we flew, I watched the Boss’s head dart from side to side as he fought to take everything in. ‘Amazing …’ he’d murmur every now and then. Occasionally, a swift question. ‘Jeez. What the hell do you call that?’
There were no more inspiring places to fly than in southern Afghanistan. It was unlike anywhere I had ever seen before and I was still captivated by it too. The landscape was both epic and primeval; everything about it was extreme. When it was flat, it was flat as a pancake. When it was hot, it was unbearably so. The rivers were never babbling streams but vast raging torrents, and the mountains climbed straight up to the heavens, of
ten from a standing start.
The plan was to do an anticlockwise circuit of the four northern platoon houses where we’d spent most of the first tour: Sangin first, then Kajaki in the far north-east, Now Zad in the far north-west, and finally Gereshk, twenty kilometres shy of Camp Bastion, on the way back.
We stuck to the safety of the desert on the way up, keeping the Green Zone to our right. Immensely fertile before the Soviet invasion in 1978–79, Helmand province had been known as Afghanistan’s breadbasket. A decade of bitter fighting against the Red Army ended that. Russian bombers smashed much of Helmand’s irrigation system to smithereens. Yet the year-round supply of melted snow off the Hindu Kush was sufficient to keep the river valley’s fields and orchards lush enough for two full crops of opium poppies a year.
The vast majority of the province’s intensely conservative, desperately impoverished, million-strong, largely Pashtun, population were farmers – or worked the farmers’ land. The majority lived in single-storey houses fashioned from adobe and stone, often without electricity or piped water. It was an existence that hadn’t changed in a millennium.
The Green Zone only amounted to a tiny central slice of the province. It was bordered by two great deserts. To its west was the Desert of Death and Camp Bastion.
‘Dasht-e-Margo …’ The Boss practised his fledgling Pashtun.
‘Yeah. But aircrew generally call it the GAFA, Boss.’
‘GAFA?’
‘The Great Afghan Fuck All.’
The GAFA was an ancient, rocky seabed with a thick covering of sand as fine as dust. Nomads set up temporary shelters on it in the winter so their goats and camels could feed on the odd bush. In the summer it remained the exclusive preserve of the drug traffickers. They criss-crossed it south to Pakistan, or west to Iran, moving raw opium or freshly processed heroin to their consumers in the Middle East or Europe, leaving an endless mesh of tyre tracks behind them. It was so barren that you couldn’t tell if you were at 100 feet or 10,000.
