Tac Flying, Kiowa Style.
- Thread starter Loachman
- Start date
op:Strike said:
Which one of us? I wasn't, and I don't think that Rick was either.
It's a useful experience, but one to avoid getting at all costs (although there was some humour in the aftermath of mine).
I am constantly surprised at the lack of wire awareness in 1 Wing today - a natural development, given that we so seldom operate at tactical altitudes in inhabited civilian territory - but more effort should be made.
Admitting one's mistakes willingly, openly, and publically is one of the fundamentals of our flight safety programme and I'll talk about mine whenever I feel that it'll save somebody else from a repeat.
I'm damned glad that that windmill generator was only a simulation though...
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If there wasn't then you would be considered waaayyyy too serious -- which I know you aren't. Just passionate, which can be easily confused.
As for that windmill, it was always those two dimentional trees that suddenly appeared out of nowhere that got me.
George Wallace
Army.ca Dinosaur
- Reaction score
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Now, wasn't that little pond outside the ammo compound in Lahr one of Triple 4's favourite NOE test grounds?
We were going through an area that happened to be a 'commune' of some sort and they had piled pig manure on some of the track junctions of their little fiefdom. We didn't ientify it as such until we pulled into our next OP after having bumped one while driving around it. Very effective route denial tactic. Every time we drove through water - or every time it rained - that Lynx stunk to high heaven.
We avoide manure piles around farm buildings for the obvious reasons. Also, a lot of German farms had underground concrete manure storage tanks and so we were extremely cautious around rectangular pads of concrete that seemed to serve to purpose.
We avoide manure piles around farm buildings for the obvious reasons. Also, a lot of German farms had underground concrete manure storage tanks and so we were extremely cautious around rectangular pads of concrete that seemed to serve to purpose.
My section got tasked one day, with way too little notice to do any real liaison or planning, to act as pathfinders for a few US UH60s lifting a Canadian course, possibly CLC, from somewhere out on the plateau on the far side of the Black Forest to an area just south of Lahr. We zipped out to the PZ and had a quick chat with the UH60 guys and troops then had to head off straight-line non-tac, with one of the DS in my back seat, in order to beat the UH60s back (much faster than us) and FIND an LZ before we could direct them into it (nobody had planned ANY of this, just, apparently, phoned a UH60 unit and asked for a ride somewhere and then called us). We found a field, but didn't have time to inspect it closely before radioing a grid no more than about 30 seconds before the UH60s arrived. The farmer's freshly-cut wheat or whatever it was that was laying on the ground pretty much all disappeared. We only had a few minutes to find another field before they returned with the second lift. Every single field that we checked had either a cut crop like the first or one still standing. We were getting pretty desperate, as the UH60s were getting close, when we finally found one with nothing but stubble in a corner between a railway line and a bundestrasse overpass. GREAT - out went the grid, again, thirty seconds later the UH60s landed, the troops bailed out and flopped to the ground, and the lift hels departed. We flew in and landed to drop the DS off, and as soon as he opened the door the stench hit us - fresh coat of manure.
George Wallace said:
We had two tac low fly areas on the west side of the A5, but I can't remember the boundaries and I don't recall such a pond (did it start with "M"?) actually within them. There were a few spots further out, but the entertainment always came from the embarassed reactions, and none of the locals ever had one as opposed to those around Pet. Boring. I never bothered in Germany.
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Strike said:
I was 300AGL flying down a valley and the wire stretched from the top (200' above me) on one side to the bottom on the other and was probably hooked to a radio or TV in a Hut. The same gage as a coat hanger and I saw about 6 inches sticking out from the nose cowling. The FE looked under the belly and couldn't see anything so I landed a couple miles ahead and the FE pulled about 90' dragging from the nose under the belly and along the tail.
Wires aren't allways the big high tension stuff between pylons. Especially in some third world country.
My experience is solely as self-loading cargo.
;D
However, in the back of a German BO-105, us (and a Kiowa or two) were rather unceremoniously chased out of the Canadian Canter Area back into the Lahr Valley by a bit of a storm. We had to use the Kinzigtal and a few other valleys to get there because everytime we got about 100 feet AGL, the snow painted the bubble white and we had to go lower.
Had we not been belted in, we would have looked like a load of Feldgrau and OG-107 clothing in a glass fronted washing machine on spin cycle. We got bounced all over in there. Sick? Nope. I just wanted to get out and walk home.
;D
However, in the back of a German BO-105, us (and a Kiowa or two) were rather unceremoniously chased out of the Canadian Canter Area back into the Lahr Valley by a bit of a storm. We had to use the Kinzigtal and a few other valleys to get there because everytime we got about 100 feet AGL, the snow painted the bubble white and we had to go lower.
Had we not been belted in, we would have looked like a load of Feldgrau and OG-107 clothing in a glass fronted washing machine on spin cycle. We got bounced all over in there. Sick? Nope. I just wanted to get out and walk home.
- Reaction score
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Back in the 1980's, when the RCR and RCD received/exercised the Freedom of the City in Frederticton, the open house at the Beaverbrook Arena was quite incredible. One of the many highlights (aside from the Leopards of the RCD "knocking on the gates" and breaking a few windows) was a Kiowa flying display done entirely between the uprights of the Beaverbrook football field goal posts... and not much higher than the top of the uprights, either.
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