ms80831
07-23-2011, 07:18 PM
Guard trains helicopter pilots to cope with thin mountain air
Colorado Springs Gazette
2011-07-23
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm94/ms80831/losw8z-losw6x072411nationalguard0580.jpg
EAGLE • Maneuvering a lithe OH-58 Kiowa above a 12,000-foot peak, Maj. Tony Somogyi does math in his head.
The aircraft weighs this much, his passengers add another 400 pounds. The fuel adds a few hundred pounds more. Meanwhile, the altitude saps power from his turbine engine, and the heat of the day makes it even weaker. The trick is figuring out how much engine power is available and whether he can land and take off again without crashing.
“It’s all about power management,” said the Iraq War veteran who teaches at the Colorado National Guard’s mountain flying school in Eagle.
The school teaches lowland pilots that, in Colorado’s high country, the Army’s strongest helicopters become the Dodge K-cars of the sky. More brick than bird, their turbine engines wheeze from lack of oxygen and their rotor blades can’t get a grip in the thin air. High temperatures further thin the air, making the altitude problem worse.
“What do you have in common with your aircraft?” Chief Warrant Officer Anders Nielsen asked a room full of Army pilots last week during ground school in Eagle. “You both suck at altitude.”
The lesson has never been more important. In Afghanistan, American helicopters routinely fly and land at altitudes above 10,000 feet, a height where helicopters seldom venture.
Mother Nature is the biggest threat to helicopters in the mountainous war zone, destroying four aircraft for every one shot down by the Taliban. One recent example: The helicopter crash on the secret raid to kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was reportedly caused by loss of lift at altitude rather than enemy fire, although details have not been released.
“It’s just sickening that we are killing ourselves 78 percent of the time,” Nielsen told his students.
Helicopters are creatures of low altitudes, generally hugging the ground even at sea level.
The all-time altitude record was set at just over 40,000 feet in 1972 in an effort that nearly killed the French crew when the engine flamed out. That’s a height where airline passengers routinely whiz through the sky.
When the Colorado National Guard began teaching pilots how to deal with the thin air of the Rockies a quarter century ago, only an elite few in the military took the risk.
In Afghanistan, the Army can’t avoid high-altitude helicopter work. The country has few roads, so helicopters take the place of trucks to resupply troops and to haul units to patrol bases. Attack helicopters are crucial, too. They provide close-in defense from insurgent attack, and in a nation where every civilian casualty can cause a riot, the pinpoint helicopter firepower is preferable to lumbering bombers that can take out whole villages.
Now, the small National Guard school in Eagle and a larger program at Fort Carson are aimed at cutting the number of crashes in Afghanistan. And the mountainous terrain of the Pikes Peak region was one of the top reasons that the Pentagon announced this year that it will put a 2,800-soldier Army aviation brigade in Colorado Springs.
The school in Eagle, across the regional airport from terminals that welcome sleek private jets, is considered to be the most elite in the country. It’s called the High Altitude Army Aviation Training Site.
Training 425 pilots a year, the program has been all but copied by the active-duty Army to train crews for Afghan flying. An aviation brigade from Hawaii is heading to Fort Carson in a few weeks to be trained.
“You have to understand yourself, understand your aircraft and understand your environment,” said Maj. Josh Day, who leads a staff of 26 that conducts the training with seven aging National Guard choppers.
The National Guard uses land under an agreement with the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. The deal is reviewed annually and the pilots say they’re sticklers for following rules, staying clear of wildlife and campers and even grounding the program during hunting season.
At more than 3,000 sorties per year, the flying program must be careful to avoid annoying neighbors in Eagle who came to the mountains for peace and serenity.
“We try to fly neighborly,” Somogyi said.
The training is more science class than Top Gun. It starts in a classroom where pilots learn the math of how high temperatures and thin air cause crashes.
“Numbers can kill,” Nielsen told students.
Then it’s up to the mountains to understand wind in a new way. Most people see wind as a horizontal force; in the mountains, wind moves in three dimensions, and a down draft on the backside of a ridge can slam a helicopter into the trees like an invisible hand.
The answer to the wind is engine power. Helicopters like the Black Hawk, designed to haul troops and sling-loaded trucks across the battlefield, usually have the horsepower to get out of trouble easily. Not at altitude.
“This is the first time I’ve noticed there’s a limit to my torque,” said Chief Warrant Officer Sean McKay, a student from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division who was getting some advance training in Eagle before the unit heads to Carson. He had spent the morning flying in the mountains, practicing landing and taking off on 10,000-foot ridges.
“You can definitely see the power difference,” said Chief Warrant Officer Brian Hill, another 25th Division student.
Hill and McKay are heading to Afghanistan this year to fly in combat.
“It’s good training,” Hill said.
But measuring the results of training is elusive, Day said.
“There’s no statistic for crashes that are avoided.”
Colorado Springs Gazette
2011-07-23
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm94/ms80831/losw8z-losw6x072411nationalguard0580.jpg
EAGLE • Maneuvering a lithe OH-58 Kiowa above a 12,000-foot peak, Maj. Tony Somogyi does math in his head.
The aircraft weighs this much, his passengers add another 400 pounds. The fuel adds a few hundred pounds more. Meanwhile, the altitude saps power from his turbine engine, and the heat of the day makes it even weaker. The trick is figuring out how much engine power is available and whether he can land and take off again without crashing.
“It’s all about power management,” said the Iraq War veteran who teaches at the Colorado National Guard’s mountain flying school in Eagle.
The school teaches lowland pilots that, in Colorado’s high country, the Army’s strongest helicopters become the Dodge K-cars of the sky. More brick than bird, their turbine engines wheeze from lack of oxygen and their rotor blades can’t get a grip in the thin air. High temperatures further thin the air, making the altitude problem worse.
“What do you have in common with your aircraft?” Chief Warrant Officer Anders Nielsen asked a room full of Army pilots last week during ground school in Eagle. “You both suck at altitude.”
The lesson has never been more important. In Afghanistan, American helicopters routinely fly and land at altitudes above 10,000 feet, a height where helicopters seldom venture.
Mother Nature is the biggest threat to helicopters in the mountainous war zone, destroying four aircraft for every one shot down by the Taliban. One recent example: The helicopter crash on the secret raid to kill terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was reportedly caused by loss of lift at altitude rather than enemy fire, although details have not been released.
“It’s just sickening that we are killing ourselves 78 percent of the time,” Nielsen told his students.
Helicopters are creatures of low altitudes, generally hugging the ground even at sea level.
The all-time altitude record was set at just over 40,000 feet in 1972 in an effort that nearly killed the French crew when the engine flamed out. That’s a height where airline passengers routinely whiz through the sky.
When the Colorado National Guard began teaching pilots how to deal with the thin air of the Rockies a quarter century ago, only an elite few in the military took the risk.
In Afghanistan, the Army can’t avoid high-altitude helicopter work. The country has few roads, so helicopters take the place of trucks to resupply troops and to haul units to patrol bases. Attack helicopters are crucial, too. They provide close-in defense from insurgent attack, and in a nation where every civilian casualty can cause a riot, the pinpoint helicopter firepower is preferable to lumbering bombers that can take out whole villages.
Now, the small National Guard school in Eagle and a larger program at Fort Carson are aimed at cutting the number of crashes in Afghanistan. And the mountainous terrain of the Pikes Peak region was one of the top reasons that the Pentagon announced this year that it will put a 2,800-soldier Army aviation brigade in Colorado Springs.
The school in Eagle, across the regional airport from terminals that welcome sleek private jets, is considered to be the most elite in the country. It’s called the High Altitude Army Aviation Training Site.
Training 425 pilots a year, the program has been all but copied by the active-duty Army to train crews for Afghan flying. An aviation brigade from Hawaii is heading to Fort Carson in a few weeks to be trained.
“You have to understand yourself, understand your aircraft and understand your environment,” said Maj. Josh Day, who leads a staff of 26 that conducts the training with seven aging National Guard choppers.
The National Guard uses land under an agreement with the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. The deal is reviewed annually and the pilots say they’re sticklers for following rules, staying clear of wildlife and campers and even grounding the program during hunting season.
At more than 3,000 sorties per year, the flying program must be careful to avoid annoying neighbors in Eagle who came to the mountains for peace and serenity.
“We try to fly neighborly,” Somogyi said.
The training is more science class than Top Gun. It starts in a classroom where pilots learn the math of how high temperatures and thin air cause crashes.
“Numbers can kill,” Nielsen told students.
Then it’s up to the mountains to understand wind in a new way. Most people see wind as a horizontal force; in the mountains, wind moves in three dimensions, and a down draft on the backside of a ridge can slam a helicopter into the trees like an invisible hand.
The answer to the wind is engine power. Helicopters like the Black Hawk, designed to haul troops and sling-loaded trucks across the battlefield, usually have the horsepower to get out of trouble easily. Not at altitude.
“This is the first time I’ve noticed there’s a limit to my torque,” said Chief Warrant Officer Sean McKay, a student from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division who was getting some advance training in Eagle before the unit heads to Carson. He had spent the morning flying in the mountains, practicing landing and taking off on 10,000-foot ridges.
“You can definitely see the power difference,” said Chief Warrant Officer Brian Hill, another 25th Division student.
Hill and McKay are heading to Afghanistan this year to fly in combat.
“It’s good training,” Hill said.
But measuring the results of training is elusive, Day said.
“There’s no statistic for crashes that are avoided.”