Hellfire

by Ed Macy

  The LOAL Indirect Mode allowed the pilot or gunner to fire the missile from behind cover while relying on a third-party-a Special Forces team, for instance-to designate the target with their laser; a sneaky way of hitting the enemy without alerting them to the presence of clandestine forces. It could be fired in LOAL Low so it hugged the ground under a low cloud base or LOAL High so it could be fired over mountains too.

  You would use LOAL Direct Mode-operated with eyes-on-if you believed the target to be in possession of laser-warning capabilities. To maintain the element of surprise you’d fire the missile, wait until the last possible moment, then lase the target a few short seconds from impact so the Hellfire would pick it up in its terminal phase.

  We could also fire multiple Hellfires, one after the other, and simply move the crosshair from target to target.

  In every case, when the seeker detected the correctly coded laser energy it forced the missile to climb as high as it could before slamming down hard on the target with as much kinetic energy as it could gain in the dive and exploding with a force of five million pounds per square inch. Even in poor weather-when the laser spot could be lost in cloud-its autopilot would correct its flight path to relocate the laser before impact. It was both devastating and surgical, which made it ideal for fighting modern wars-wars in which as many civilians as enemy were likely to be in the vicinity of the target.

  The Apache was capable of carrying sixteen Hellfires in any combination of RF and SAL, although it was more likely to carry a combination of SAL and rockets. A typical mix would be eight Hellfires, four on each launcher, and thirty-eight rockets-a mixed bag of MPSM, HEISAP and Flechette-nineteen in each pod.

  The moment I selected ‘M’ on the cyclic or ORT grip to action the Hellfires, the ‘missile page’ appeared on the MPD screen above my left knee, giving me a graphic depiction of their status. An R indicated a missile was ready in LOAL; a T showed it tracking the laser spot in LOBL. The same information was also displayed in the monocle.

  At this point, the missile was ready to fire. I’d kick the tail rotor pedals, slewing the Apache left or right, a few degrees off centre-depending on which side of the fuselage the missile was to be launched from-ensuring that it didn’t fly through the line of sight of the TADS, its exhaust gases saturating and blurring out the DTV image or blinding the highly heat-sensitive FLIR camera. In the complex dynamics of the modern battlefield the gunner needed to maintain eyes-on the target right up until the moment of impact, especially with a missile that covered a kilometre in three seconds.

  The news from the Iraq campaign had been full of harrowing details of civilian casualties and we knew we needed to do everything possible to avoid them.

  Should a child or a ‘friendly’ suddenly appear near the laser spot on the target, at any point up to impact, all the gunner had to do was move the crosshair elsewhere and the Hellfire would readjust its flight path to intercept the new point of aim.

  As I listened to Paul, I realised that the Hellfire lay at the centre of the Apache’s lethal, flexible weapon system.

  After lessons each day, the four of us that had done the Weapons Officer’s Course were given additional instruction on how to teach what we had just been taught. It was a punishing routine, but I knew that I’d found the specialist role I’d been looking for. The machine’s full potential lay in its ability to deliver the Hellfire, rockets and cannon projectiles with pinpoint accuracy. Only by becoming the Squadron Weapons Officer would I be able to make good on the promise offered by this unique platform.

  LEARNING TO FLY-LEARNING TO FIGHT

  The day of my first flight started like any other-in one of the lecture rooms of the facility that had been built especially for the Apache at Middle Wallop. After a month of theory, we were ready to put our new knowledge to the test. We were also ready to meet our instructors. Mine turned out to be Scottie, whom I’d been friends with for over a decade and with whom I’d shared many sorties over the Emerald Isle, flying patrol support during the Year of the Sniper.

  ‘Helloo, Ed!’ He breezed into the lecture room. ‘Are ye ready to go flying?’

  I tried to pretend that it was no big deal, but Scottie wasn’t having any of it. ‘Och, come on, Ed, you’re allowed to show a little appreciation. You showed me the ropes in Ireland; now it’s my turn. You’re going to love this-I guarantee it.’

  The lucky bugger had spent a few months learning to be an Apache instructor in the wide open spaces of Alabama, flying sorties from Fort Rucker after finishing the Weapons Officer’s Course with me last summer.

  We walked into one of the specially revamped hangars. Twelve Apaches lay waiting under the arc lights, each with only a few hours on the clock. The tips of their rotor blades were rigid and interleaved to make the most of the available space. Scottie gave the nearest a reassuring pat on the nose. ‘I don’t think there is anything I could tell you about this that you don’t already know,’ he said.

  I grinned. ‘I could build one in my garage if you gave me the bits.’

  He curled his finger and beckoned me to follow him. We walked around the stubby wing on the right-hand side of the aircraft and paused beside the fuselage. I was finding it really hard to remain calm.

  What never failed to impress was the sheer size of the Apache; the mighty Chinook that could carry fifty-five troops in the back was only a little over two feet longer than this two-seater. It was twice the length of a Gazelle and considerably bigger in volume. Up close, it was angular and ugly. The hangar was enormous, but getting twelve in was like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle.

  My mouth had gone dry.

  Scottie pulled himself up onto the wing. I jumped up, too, and watched over his shoulder as he opened up the cowling that shielded one of the two RTM322 engines and demonstrated how to inspect the oil levels-one of the pilot’s many duties before takeoff. Satisfied, he proceeded to check that the intakes were free from obstructions and then opened up the gearbox inspection hatch on the wing, just forward of the engine intake.

  Back on the ground, he opened up the access panel on the back of the wing that contained some of the communications equipment. We then walked down to the tail and checked the stabilator-the aero-foil wing that sat horizontally below the tail rotor. It was locked and secure, as was the tail wheel below it.

  The inspection continued up the port side. Finally, standing on the top of the Apache, above and behind the pilot’s cockpit, I watched Scottie spin the radome, perched on the main rotor hub, over sixteen feet above the grey-painted concrete floor.

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what you’re doing?’ I said. ‘I am here to learn.’

  ‘Och,’ Scottie tutted, ‘you don’t want to be fussing yourself over stuff like this. Not today. Today is for flying, Ed.’ He pointed a manicured finger at his wrist, gesturing for me to take a look at the latest addition to his watch collection. ‘Though according to Mr Breitling, we’ve time for a spot of lunch first.’

  I was about to voice my frustration when Scottie, knowing how much I wanted to get airborne, put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Climb down, Ed. Everything in its own time. This wee machine isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be ready to fly after we’ve eaten.’

  By the time we returned, the ground crew had towed all twelve gunships onto the pan. Protected by an imposing razor-wire fence, they were accessible only via a set of electronically activated gates designed to accommodate an Apache with room to spare.

  They were arranged in two rows of six, their noses pointed inwards like prop forwards about to lock heads in a scrummage. I handed my camera to another student, a guy called Pat Wiles, and asked him to snap away. As I shook Scottie’s hand I felt like I’d been preparing for this moment all of my life.

  Scottie showed me how to swing myself into the cockpit using the grab handles in the cockpit roof. For today’s flight I was in the back seat, which was stepped up to give the rear-seater-the pilot on a normal sortie-visibility over the gunner’s head.

 
; When I’d pulled on my bonedome, Scottie showed me how to adjust the monocle. Then, after running rapidly over the cockpit layout, he jumped into the front.

  After closing the cockpit and going through our preliminary flight checks, I fired up the auxiliary power unit, a small gas-turbine that supplied juice to the aircraft when it was on the ground. A faint hum was quickly drowned out by the rush of the air conditioning. In front of me, screens and displays burst into life.

  By following the procedures I’d become familiar with in the simulator, I bore-sighted myself to the aircraft by aligning my monocle with the BRU on the coaming in front of me.

  I threw the engine power levers forward and the blades began to turn.

  After a further round of systems checks, Scottie asked whether I was ready.

  I’d been ready ever since he’d first bloody asked me.

  The Apache was nearly seventeen feet from wing tip to wing tip, but its undercarriage track-six and half feet-was relatively narrow. Scottie warned me that this, coupled with the heavy FCR above the main rotor head, made the helicopter feel unstable while you were taxiing.

  I told him I was good to go.

  ‘Right,’ he said in my ears, ‘we need to pull in a little power. Thirty per cent torque will do.’ He reminded me to look for the ‘ball’-a solid circular graphic, bottom centre in my monocle. If it was to the left of its kennel when we were on the ground we were leaning to the left. It also acted like a conventional slip indicator in the air.

  I lifted the collective lever slightly with my left hand, increasing the power. The Apache began to vibrate. Everything looked and felt good. I checked the monocle: in the top left it told me the RTM322 engines were reaching 30 per cent.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough power now-you’ve got sufficient induced flow to move the aircraft.’ Induced flow was the downwash generated by the main blades. Pushing the cyclic tilted the rotor disc forward. I could feel the Apache straining to be released.

  ‘Raise your visor,’ Scottie said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to see your face while you’re taxiing.’

  I glanced up. His eyes were watching mine in the little vanity mirror above his seat.

  ‘Okay, Ed. Brakes off and remember to keep her bolt upright. If she leans left move the cyclic to the right. Push the cyclic forward to go faster and back to slow down. Got it?’

  ‘Sounds simple enough, Scottie.’

  I glanced down to place my feet on the very tops of the pedals.

  ‘Don’t look down, Ed!’

  ‘Okay, mate, keep your hair on.’

  I rotated the tips of my toes forward and the parking brake handle released with a loud clunk.

  I pushed the cyclic a bit more and we started to roll forward. Suddenly, I started to panic. The helicopter felt like it was about to fall over.

  I could hear Scottie laughing.

  Ahead of me the yellow line curved to the right in a large sweeping arc towards the huge gates and safely away from the Apache parked in front of me.

  ‘Right, I want you to release the tail wheel-but, remember, be careful.’

  I looked down for the button on the collective.

  ‘Don’t look down, Ed. One more sneaky peek and I’ll mark you down for not knowing your controls.’

  I’d spent weeks learning where they were but I didn’t want to make a mistake and push the wrong button.

  ‘Sorry, Scottie. It’s nerves. Mate, I’m afraid to fuck up.’

  ‘Relax, Ed. This is the easy bit. You must learn where things are instinctively. It’s for your own good. Wait until you do the bag.’

  ‘What exactly is the bag?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Now, just concentrate on taxiing this thing because you need to follow that line.’ He paused. ‘So unlock the tail wheel.’

  Making sure I didn’t look this time, I pressed the appropriate button on the collective. Immediately, and to my enormous surprise, the tail weather-cocked rapidly to the right.

  Whoa!

  ‘I have control.’ Scottie’s voice was reassuringly calm. ‘You’ve got too much left pedal in. There’s your first lesson.’

  I cursed under my breath. Jesus. The power of this thing…

  ‘You’re overcontrolling. With the tail wheel released you have to use the pedals to keep the aircraft straight and the cyclic to keep it upright. Try again.’

  I tried to follow the painted yellow line on the concrete that led towards the gate posts, but it was impossible. I’d never flown a helicopter with wheels before-the Gazelle had skids.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Scottie asked, as the Apache weaved precariously either side of the line. I was zigzagging all over the place. It was worse than my first driving lesson.

  The line was now pointing straight towards the gates but I still couldn’t follow it.

  ‘Okay,’ he said after several more seconds of this torture. ‘I have control.’

  I felt terrible. I’d never known anything like it. I was worried that I’d never get the hang of it.

  Scottie plonked us bang on the line and manoeuvred the Apache between the gates and lined us up on a piece of taxiway called the ‘keyhole’ because that was how it looked from the air. It was designed to allow you to take off into wind whichever direction it was coming from.

  ‘I’m not teaching you this bit, Ed. Just sit back and enjoy it.’

  With that, Scottie pulled up on the collective. There was a thunderous noise of downwash as the blades coned upwards, battering the air into submission. For a brief moment, as the two power plants fought to provide the torque that the Apache needed, I became aware of just how massive it was. And then suddenly we were airborne and accelerating skywards.

  As I looked back over my shoulder, I saw Pat tracking us with his camera. I had no doubt my taxiing efforts would be enjoyed by all that hadn’t flown yet well before our wheels were reunited with terra firma.

  Over the next two months, I learned how to tame the beast. One of the hugely innovative things about the Apache was the degree of automation built into it. Early on, I was taught about ‘holds’-how you could punch a hold button and maintain the aircraft’s position over the ground in the hover, or its heading, or its speed, or height or a particular rate of turn. There were so many things you needed to stay ahead of in the cockpit that being relieved of the necessity to fly at certain times really helped to shoulder the load. Soon, I was climbing, descending, turning and doing climbing and descending turns.

  I learned to master the MPDs-the TV screens that obviated the need for the Apache’s cockpit to be littered with the dozens upon dozens of instruments and dials of its forebears. In fact, the only ones that were common to the US AH64A were four tiny standby instruments in case all of the electrics failed; everything else was requested by the pilot as a page on an MPD. Over 5,000 different information pages could be stored on the computer and displayed on the MPD screens. Learning how to navigate our way through them was like grappling with a new Windows-type software program and we had to know it instinctively. It was the same with the knobs, switches and buttons. There were 227 of them in the cockpit, but most had at least three different modes or functionalities, giving us nearly 700 positions and over a thousand permutations to remember.

  We also had to master the monocle. As well as targeting and flight information, it could also display FLIR imagery beneath the data to allow the pilot to see at night. This was all well and good. What wasn’t so good was what they called ‘monocular rivalry’-it was by far the trickiest task I had ever had to learn.

  Basically, your right eye stared at a small glass plate less than an inch from your cornea. Your left eye, meanwhile, was looking at the real world-which could stretch from your cockpit instruments to infinity. Bringing either the left or right image into focus was fairly straightforward, but trying to see both clearly at the same time seemed impossible.

  Ever tried it? Which one wins?

  The fact was: neither did. E
ach eye fought the other for supremacy in the brain, threatening to split my head apart. But then, one day, the headaches stopped; my eyes and brain had discovered how to work together. Slowly, I was becoming a part of the machine.

  I learned how to do field circuits, hovering, navigation, autorotation and running takeoffs and landings. I then found out how the Apache performed on limited power-i.e. with one engine out. I practised manoeuvring in and out of confined areas-much trickier in this big machine than it had been in the Gazelle-and how to land on a slope; again, not easy in a large helicopter that had narrow wheels for an undercarriage rather than skids.

  Finally, I was taught quick-stops, wingovers and high-g turns at max power and performance; how to get to height fast, how to get down fast and how to turn hard.

  Then, as 2003 became 2004, it was into the part-task trainers and the simulator again to continue learning how to turn our knowledge into practice. The position and function of every switch and button was supposed to be intuitive by now; as natural as drawing breath. The instructors drilled us hard on this point. The simulator had very little light during this phase and we soon found out why. Everything we’d done had just been a prelude to flying ‘in the bag’.

  Flying in the bag did not equate to anything I’d ever done before. During my early sorties in the Apache, I’d noticed Velcro strips around the interior of the cockpit. It turned out that they were to hold big black PVC panels over the clear perspex canopy for ‘bag flights’-flights in which the student pilot was immersed in darkness. With the PVC panels in place no light entered the rear cockpit. Our only reference to the external world would be via the monocle and the feed from the instruments; the FLIR and the PNVS would be turned off. The thought of flying in the bag terrified me.

  It didn’t matter what we’d achieved up till then, if we failed the bag, we’d be out.