“You’re cleared for landing. You’re a thousand feet and ninety knots, so start a shallow descent to this end of the runway. If the end of the runway appears to be moving under you, you need to slow the aircraft and increase your rate of descent. If it appears to be moving away from you, you need to stop your rate of descent but not your airspeed yet. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Kelly answered as he concentrated on flying the aircraft. He pressed down on the collective slightly, noting the vertical speed indicator slowly dropping to a descent of two hundred feet per minute. His airspeed fluctuated between eighty and ninety knots. Kelly was beginning to show signs of perspiration.
“Relax, Kelly, you got this,” Mike encouraged him.
“Glad you think so,” Kelly muttered. The runway appeared to be moving towards the aircraft.
“Okay, you need to get more of a descent going. See how the runway appears to be moving towards you? You want it to be getting bigger, but not moving, so increase your descent and raise your nose a bit to drop some speed.” Kelly moved the cyclic back slightly, reducing speed, but his vertical speed did not decrease.
“As you move the cyclic back to drop your speed, you need to decrease the collective to compensate, so put some down pressure on the collective.” Kelly did so and noticed the vertical speed increase. Airspeed was now down to sixty knots, with a three-hundred-foot-per-minute descent. The runway started to move away from the aircraft.
“Okay, you put in too much collective, but just come back more on your cyclic to bleed off some airspeed and that’ll slow your descent.” Kelly made the adjustment and noticed the runway stopped moving away.
“Good, now just hold what you got. What’s your altitude?” Mike could see what it was on his altimeter but wanted Kelly to be scanning his instruments as well as flying the aircraft.
“We’re at three hundred feet,” Kelly answered.
“Okay, your rate of descent looks good, so just come back on your airspeed a bit.” Bill put a slight amount of back pressure on the cyclic, and the airspeed dropped to forty knots.
“Good, now a little more down pressure on the collective to compensate for the drop in airspeed.” Kelly responded accordingly. “Good, back some more on your airspeed and a bit of down pressure on the collective.” The runway was growing larger in the windshield as the aircraft descended to treetop level. “I’m on the controls with you, but you’re flying the aircraft. Back pressure on cyclic to get your airspeed down to twenty knots. Keep us lined up on the center of the runway with your pedals. Hold what you have on the collective to a one-hundred-foot-per-minute rate of descent.”
Kelly’s eyes were glued to the front of the aircraft as they passed over the end of the runway at about thirty feet. His airspeed was right at twenty knots.
“Okay, think about down pressure on the collective and back pressure on the cyclic,” Mike instructed. Kelly had a white-knuckle death grip on both the cyclic and collective at this point.
“Hey, Kelly, don’t screw this up,” Conrad chimed in as he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to jerk Kelly’s chain.
“He won’t,” Mike said as they felt the skids touched the runway at ten knots airspeed.
“Slowly continue to lower the collective and put some back pressure on the cyclic,” Mike coached as the aircraft kept sliding on the sheet metal runway, finally coming to a full stop.
“Nice job. I got the aircraft,” Mike said as he took the controls and called the tower for clearance to hover taxi to the Chicken Pen.
“You have the aircraft,” Kelly said, taking a deep breath.
“You did good. We’ll practice that a couple more times in the next couple of days and you’ll have it down pat without me talking to you. Maybe by then Mr. Reid will even learn how to shoot,” Mike added with a chuckle.
“Hey, Mike, kiss my ass” was heard on the intercom.17
Chapter 11
Find the Enemy
The Night Hawk mission had one purpose, find and kill the enemy. The mission rotated between the three assault helicopter companies of the battalion on an almost monthly basis. Lobo generally had one aircraft up each night, providing gun cover for whatever company was flying low bird for the night. Tonight’s Night Hawk mission was being flown by elements of B Company, 227th Assault Helicopter Battalion. The mission consisted of three aircraft, two from B Company and one from Delta Company, the Cobra gunship.
The mission was flown after dark with one aircraft flying below two hundred feet above the ground at sixty knots airspeed with all his navigation lights up bright so he could be easily seen. In the cargo door position on the left side of the low bird, a third crew member was manning a fifty-thousand-watt searchlight that had a starlight scope mounted on top. The sensitivity of the starlight scope was such that someone on the ground smoking a cigarette could be easily seen like a lighthouse on a distant shore to a ship. When that happened, the operator turned on the searchlight and the crew chief opened fire with the .50-caliber machine gun. Next to the searchlight and mounted in front of the crew chief was a .50-caliber, M2 machine gun. On the right side was the M60 machine gun normally located on the UH-1H aircraft. That aircraft was the bait. The aircraft commander had flown this mission several times since his arrival in-country over six months ago as the same crews generally flew the mission and slept during the day. You had to be a bit insane to fly this mission, which was usually done by volunteers. Generally, married men were not considered for this mission, and thus most of the crews consisted of single soldiers. In addition, older aviators generally did not fly the mission. There are old aviators and bold aviators, but few old and bold aviators. This mission required bold pilots and crews.
The Cobra gunship would fly above and behind the bait aircraft, watching to see if it took fire, and would engage anyone foolish enough to engage the bait aircraft, or low bird as it was referred to by the crews. The Cobra would also engage any targets that the searchlight illuminated. The Cobra gunship was armed with four rocket pods on the wing pylons. The outboard pods on both sides contained seven flechette rockets each, which were effective against troops in the open. Each flechette rocket contained one thousand, one hundred and seventy-nine darts approximately one inch in length. Inboard on each wing pylon was a pod containing nineteen seventeen-pound, 2.75-inch folding fin rockets, each equivalent to a 105-millimeter artillery round. In addition, the aircraft had two 7.62-millimeter miniguns in his nose turret, capable of firing up to six thousand rounds per minute. Generally, however, the rate of fire was set at three thousand rounds per minute.
The third aircraft was the flare ship, a UH-1H with two pods containing twenty one-million-power flares, ten in each pod, strapped to the outside of the aircraft. Under no circumstances did the crew want any of those flares inside the aircraft. If one accidentally ignited, it would burn through the aircraft in less than ten seconds and there would be nothing the crew could do to save it, or themselves. The pods could be jettisoned if one ignited while in the pod. The flare ship would drop flares one at a time only if needed. One flare igniting at twenty-five hundred feet above the ground could light up a high school football field as if it was day for about five minutes.
Tonight the mission was being flown for the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cav Division, who had the call sign of Sabre. “Sabre Six, Masher One-Five, over.” Masher One-Five was the low bird for tonight’s mission and the mission commander.
“Masher One-Five, Sabre Six India, over.”
“Sabre Six India, Masher One-Five is off Bu Gia Map. Will contact you when we come back to refuel.”
“Roger, Masher One-Five.” Switching radios, Masher One-Five contacted his escort for the night.