All we have to fear is Blackhawks.
Most people have heard of Airborne troops. They are the guys you see jumping out of planes in the movies. I've never had the opportunity to jump out out of a perfectly good plane but it's on my list of things to do before I leave this planet. The place where I was stationed was an Air Assault post which is similar to Airborne but uses helicopters and ropes instead of planes and parachutes. The whole premise behind Air Assault is mobility. Use helicopters to move men and material quickly. There were few "heavy" units stationed where I was. It was pretty rare to see tanks and heavy armored vehicles because helicopters can't lift sixty ton tanks. Our job was to move faster and out maneuver the enemy. We did this by loading our equipment in, on, and under UH60 and CH47 whirly birds.
Sling loading equipment under helicopters requires a two man ground crew. One guy actually hooks up the load and the other has a static probe which is just a fancy name for grounding wire. The probe guy touches the hook on the helicopter to discharge any static electricity that has been built up by those spinning rotors. They tell you horror stories about men being blown off the equipment by static charges. I never really believed it until I was watching a low hovering Blackhawk one night. You could literally see the electric current at the tips of the blades.
Not many people can say a helicopter landed on them. During my last JRTC rotation I was apart of a ground crew that was hooking up a bunch of Hummers under a fleet of Blackhawks. Everything was going smooth in the late afternoon. When it got dark, it started getting hairy as it usually does. All the pilots wear night vision goggles (NVGs) when it gets dark. NVGs are super cool and work fantastic. They make the cherry from a cigarette look like a homing beacon. They have two drawbacks. First, even small light sources can be blinding. Second, you have little depth perception. It's a little like walking around in a two dimensional, fuzzy, black and green TV show. I can imagine flying a helicopter with NVGs could be a real challenge just from the experience I had driving with the things. We were in a rush to get these trucks off the ground. My probe man and I were on a roll till this one particular load. It was a soft top truck that had all the bows collapsed over the rear bed to keep it from blowing apart in the rotor wash. The vinyl top was used as a sort of toneau cover to keep all the gear in the back from blowing away. I was standing on the cab of the truck (a big no-no) because the rear chords were too short. When the rear chords are short it becomes impossible to get enough vertical slack to get the damn trucks hooked up from the hood. So there I am, standing on the cab of this truck with my probe man at my side as this Blackhawk approaches. It slowly moves into position from the rear. I can see the crew chiefs' head poking upside down through the hatch next to the birds hook as he guides his pilot to my position. My probe man touches the hook and jumps from the truck as the the helio comes closer. Everything looks good. The hook is just above eye level and I reach with my loop to slam it in the hook. There's a problem! Not enough slack in the chords to get the loop into the fucking hook. The hook if getting lower which is good. It's also moving forward as it comes down and I'm unable to get any more slack which is bad. The next thing I know I'm on my knees as the hook passes my head and continues down. I'm expecting the crew chief in the bird to tell the pilot to break it off at this point. I find myself sitting on the truck as the bird continues down and forward. I'm now officially terrified. It's amazing how your brain wonders when you think your about to die. My thoughts went from being crushed under the weight of this Blackhawk to being chopped to bits by the tail rotor. I imagined my mother getting the little pieces of me and a flag as my CO tried to explain what a dumbass I was. I was on my back now laying with my feet on the vinyl in the bed of the truck. I could feel the weight of the helicopter as it pressed my feet down. In shear terror now I frantically beat on the belly of the fucking thing with the metal loop I still had in my grip. My feet mercifully sank as whatever was under the vinyl was soft. The bird continued on its slow downward track. It happened agonizingly slow. It was like torture. I screamed at the top of my lungs and hit the bottom of the fuselage so hard that I could see dents in the skin of the aircraft. I could feel the weight of it up to my knees. It was only a matter of time before the UH60 crushed my torso, like a roach under a shoe, on the hard top cab of the truck. Strangely I became calm. My fate was sealed. I just had come to terms with death when the weight lifted. The aircraft reversed course. I slammed the hoop into the hook as it came back over my head. Once clear, I jumped from the Hummer and gave the crew chief the bird as I ran away. My middle finger stayed up until the Blackhawk disappeared into the darkness.
Sling loading equipment under helicopters requires a two man ground crew. One guy actually hooks up the load and the other has a static probe which is just a fancy name for grounding wire. The probe guy touches the hook on the helicopter to discharge any static electricity that has been built up by those spinning rotors. They tell you horror stories about men being blown off the equipment by static charges. I never really believed it until I was watching a low hovering Blackhawk one night. You could literally see the electric current at the tips of the blades.
Not many people can say a helicopter landed on them. During my last JRTC rotation I was apart of a ground crew that was hooking up a bunch of Hummers under a fleet of Blackhawks. Everything was going smooth in the late afternoon. When it got dark, it started getting hairy as it usually does. All the pilots wear night vision goggles (NVGs) when it gets dark. NVGs are super cool and work fantastic. They make the cherry from a cigarette look like a homing beacon. They have two drawbacks. First, even small light sources can be blinding. Second, you have little depth perception. It's a little like walking around in a two dimensional, fuzzy, black and green TV show. I can imagine flying a helicopter with NVGs could be a real challenge just from the experience I had driving with the things. We were in a rush to get these trucks off the ground. My probe man and I were on a roll till this one particular load. It was a soft top truck that had all the bows collapsed over the rear bed to keep it from blowing apart in the rotor wash. The vinyl top was used as a sort of toneau cover to keep all the gear in the back from blowing away. I was standing on the cab of the truck (a big no-no) because the rear chords were too short. When the rear chords are short it becomes impossible to get enough vertical slack to get the damn trucks hooked up from the hood. So there I am, standing on the cab of this truck with my probe man at my side as this Blackhawk approaches. It slowly moves into position from the rear. I can see the crew chiefs' head poking upside down through the hatch next to the birds hook as he guides his pilot to my position. My probe man touches the hook and jumps from the truck as the the helio comes closer. Everything looks good. The hook is just above eye level and I reach with my loop to slam it in the hook. There's a problem! Not enough slack in the chords to get the loop into the fucking hook. The hook if getting lower which is good. It's also moving forward as it comes down and I'm unable to get any more slack which is bad. The next thing I know I'm on my knees as the hook passes my head and continues down. I'm expecting the crew chief in the bird to tell the pilot to break it off at this point. I find myself sitting on the truck as the bird continues down and forward. I'm now officially terrified. It's amazing how your brain wonders when you think your about to die. My thoughts went from being crushed under the weight of this Blackhawk to being chopped to bits by the tail rotor. I imagined my mother getting the little pieces of me and a flag as my CO tried to explain what a dumbass I was. I was on my back now laying with my feet on the vinyl in the bed of the truck. I could feel the weight of the helicopter as it pressed my feet down. In shear terror now I frantically beat on the belly of the fucking thing with the metal loop I still had in my grip. My feet mercifully sank as whatever was under the vinyl was soft. The bird continued on its slow downward track. It happened agonizingly slow. It was like torture. I screamed at the top of my lungs and hit the bottom of the fuselage so hard that I could see dents in the skin of the aircraft. I could feel the weight of it up to my knees. It was only a matter of time before the UH60 crushed my torso, like a roach under a shoe, on the hard top cab of the truck. Strangely I became calm. My fate was sealed. I just had come to terms with death when the weight lifted. The aircraft reversed course. I slammed the hoop into the hook as it came back over my head. Once clear, I jumped from the Hummer and gave the crew chief the bird as I ran away. My middle finger stayed up until the Blackhawk disappeared into the darkness.
posted by Glenn at 5:40 AM
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