bobdina
03-30-2010, 12:17 PM
Chinooks essential to remote Afghan FOBs
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 29, 2010 21:47:53 EDT
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Sgt. Jeffery Sherwood looked beyond the M240B 7.62mm machine gun mounted to Flipper 13, down at the arid countryside. He spotted a forward operating base, then another.
“We helped build that one,” said Sherwood, one of the Chinook’s two crew chiefs.
Seconds later, flight engineer Staff Sgt. David Loiseau pointed out another FOB over the horizon.
“Yeah, that one too,” Sherwood said.
Without Chinooks, there would be no FOBs.
Convoys are out of the question. Most of the roads are just ruts — and those that are passable are lined with improvised explosive devices rigged by Taliban fighters. So the work of shuttling soldiers and delivering supplies falls mostly to the helos, aptly described by the soldiers who fly them as part taxi and part pickup truck.
The Bravo Company, 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, has 20 CH-47F Chinooks based here. The 82nd is closing in on 8,000 flight hours and 800 combat missions since arriving almost a year ago to replace the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade and its five Chinooks.
Bravo Company does most of the heavy lifting. The eight crews fly eight missions every 24 hours, and the relentless pace is starting to show. Army Times flew with one of the crews March 9 to get a first-hand look at the key role the Chinooks are playing in the latest surge.
A new model
All the crews, this one included, have five members — two pilots, two crew chiefs and a flight engineer. Chief Warrant Officer Ryan Carroll and Capt. J.D. Sauer are the pilots. Spc. Galen Cooper is the other crew chief. Cooper, Sherwood and Loiseau fly on missions, and load and maintain the helos.
Maintenance is perhaps the toughest part of the soldiers’ jobs. They’re strapped for time to do it, and the high op tempo, coupled with Afghanistan’s heat and dust, take a toll on the aircraft.
“This is what happens,” Loiseau said as he walked away from a Chinook in need of maintenance. “We just keep pushing, and eventually, it shows.”
Flying the new foxtrot model has added to the challenge. First, it was problems with the digital displays in the cockpit, which the delta model doesn’t have. They worked themselves out. Now, it’s mechanical issues.
“It’s kind of like Goldilocks,” Sauer said of the Chinook. “She doesn’t like it when it’s cold and she doesn’t like it when it’s hot — and that’s exactly what it’s like here in the winters and summers.”
Still, the 82nd Chinooks have a 90 percent operational readiness rate, and the crew loves the foxtrot model, hiccups and all.
“This helicopter is going to save lives,” Carroll said.
On this day, though, the Chinook that Sherwood, Cooper and Loiseau spent two hours loading with a 2-ton generator, five kicker boxes and an all-terrain vehicle had a malfunctioning forward rotor. It kept bouncing up and down.
“Bossman, we’re going to have to shut this one down,” Carroll said on the radio.
Headquarters tried to move the mission to two other Chinooks, but one of the helos had mechanical problems in the avionics and the other had loading equipment in the cargo bay.
After deciding it would take too long to offload and onload the 11,000 pounds of cargo in time to fly the mission, headquarters changed plans. The crew prepped Flipper 13 and Flipper 20 for taxi duty, although later the Chinooks carried cargo boxes from one FOB to another.
The Flipper name dates back to Vietnam, when soldiers with Bravo Company thought the helo fluttered up and down like a dolphin when it landed, said Staff Sgt. Aubree Clute, an 82nd spokesman.
“Yeah, it’s not the skull and crossbones,” Carroll said, “but I like it because it has so much tradition behind the name.”
Takeoff at last
The Chinooks finally left the ground at 2:43 p.m., pushed back from 11 a.m. To Sauer, southern Afghanistan usually looks like Mars — flat in spots, mountainous in others, red and covered with a powdery soil he described as “moon dust.”
On the way to the first stop, FOB Shinkay, Carroll and Sauer demonstrated a few of the foxtrot model’s capabilities.
Carroll typed in a command that kept the Chinook in a steady hover during takeoff. The helicopter also can descend on its own, at 3 feet per second, until it is 10 feet from the ground. Sauer finds the feature especially useful in southern Afghanistan, where dust storms are common.
Another valuable feature when visibility is limited is the foxtrot model’s digital maps that highlight any terrain 200 feet below or above the altitude the Chinook is flying. The digital maps also keep the pilot from having to reach for paper maps mid-flight.
The digital displays on the whole make flying much easier than the gauges they replaced, Carroll and Sauer said. For example, a rundown of the day’s missions popped up and the pilots typed in coordinates to automatically land the Chinook at the exact target time for each leg.
At FOB Shinkay, Flipper 20 picks up eight passengers — or what the crew calls PAX — while Flipper 13 circles overhead. The FOBs stick out from the mud buildings that dot the countryside, one of the few signs of the 21st century.
Next stop is FOB Apache. Apache sits next to FOB Eagle, built next to the ruins of Alexander the Great’s castle.
“Pretty crazy, right?” Sherwood said over the radio.
For this mission, the Chinooks flew without Apache helicopter escorts because the threat of rocket-propelled grenades is not as high as in more urban areas, where the Taliban has more influence.
The Chinooks flew on to FOB Eagle to pick up more passengers and kicker boxes filled with an assortment of supplies. Then they headed to Qalat, a key city in Zabul province. The passengers got off and Loiseau ran out to help with refueling the helo.
FOB Mizan, also in Zabul province, was the last stop for Army Times. U.S. and Afghan soldiers raced out to the landing zone to greet the Chinooks, which were bringing them much-needed water and mortar rounds. Their last supply arrived five days before.
“It’s the Chinooks that help us from getting cut off,” said Sgt. 1st Class Victor Delvalle, the platoon sergeant at Mizan. “We definitely needed that water.”
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/army_chinook_032910w/
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 29, 2010 21:47:53 EDT
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Sgt. Jeffery Sherwood looked beyond the M240B 7.62mm machine gun mounted to Flipper 13, down at the arid countryside. He spotted a forward operating base, then another.
“We helped build that one,” said Sherwood, one of the Chinook’s two crew chiefs.
Seconds later, flight engineer Staff Sgt. David Loiseau pointed out another FOB over the horizon.
“Yeah, that one too,” Sherwood said.
Without Chinooks, there would be no FOBs.
Convoys are out of the question. Most of the roads are just ruts — and those that are passable are lined with improvised explosive devices rigged by Taliban fighters. So the work of shuttling soldiers and delivering supplies falls mostly to the helos, aptly described by the soldiers who fly them as part taxi and part pickup truck.
The Bravo Company, 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, has 20 CH-47F Chinooks based here. The 82nd is closing in on 8,000 flight hours and 800 combat missions since arriving almost a year ago to replace the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade and its five Chinooks.
Bravo Company does most of the heavy lifting. The eight crews fly eight missions every 24 hours, and the relentless pace is starting to show. Army Times flew with one of the crews March 9 to get a first-hand look at the key role the Chinooks are playing in the latest surge.
A new model
All the crews, this one included, have five members — two pilots, two crew chiefs and a flight engineer. Chief Warrant Officer Ryan Carroll and Capt. J.D. Sauer are the pilots. Spc. Galen Cooper is the other crew chief. Cooper, Sherwood and Loiseau fly on missions, and load and maintain the helos.
Maintenance is perhaps the toughest part of the soldiers’ jobs. They’re strapped for time to do it, and the high op tempo, coupled with Afghanistan’s heat and dust, take a toll on the aircraft.
“This is what happens,” Loiseau said as he walked away from a Chinook in need of maintenance. “We just keep pushing, and eventually, it shows.”
Flying the new foxtrot model has added to the challenge. First, it was problems with the digital displays in the cockpit, which the delta model doesn’t have. They worked themselves out. Now, it’s mechanical issues.
“It’s kind of like Goldilocks,” Sauer said of the Chinook. “She doesn’t like it when it’s cold and she doesn’t like it when it’s hot — and that’s exactly what it’s like here in the winters and summers.”
Still, the 82nd Chinooks have a 90 percent operational readiness rate, and the crew loves the foxtrot model, hiccups and all.
“This helicopter is going to save lives,” Carroll said.
On this day, though, the Chinook that Sherwood, Cooper and Loiseau spent two hours loading with a 2-ton generator, five kicker boxes and an all-terrain vehicle had a malfunctioning forward rotor. It kept bouncing up and down.
“Bossman, we’re going to have to shut this one down,” Carroll said on the radio.
Headquarters tried to move the mission to two other Chinooks, but one of the helos had mechanical problems in the avionics and the other had loading equipment in the cargo bay.
After deciding it would take too long to offload and onload the 11,000 pounds of cargo in time to fly the mission, headquarters changed plans. The crew prepped Flipper 13 and Flipper 20 for taxi duty, although later the Chinooks carried cargo boxes from one FOB to another.
The Flipper name dates back to Vietnam, when soldiers with Bravo Company thought the helo fluttered up and down like a dolphin when it landed, said Staff Sgt. Aubree Clute, an 82nd spokesman.
“Yeah, it’s not the skull and crossbones,” Carroll said, “but I like it because it has so much tradition behind the name.”
Takeoff at last
The Chinooks finally left the ground at 2:43 p.m., pushed back from 11 a.m. To Sauer, southern Afghanistan usually looks like Mars — flat in spots, mountainous in others, red and covered with a powdery soil he described as “moon dust.”
On the way to the first stop, FOB Shinkay, Carroll and Sauer demonstrated a few of the foxtrot model’s capabilities.
Carroll typed in a command that kept the Chinook in a steady hover during takeoff. The helicopter also can descend on its own, at 3 feet per second, until it is 10 feet from the ground. Sauer finds the feature especially useful in southern Afghanistan, where dust storms are common.
Another valuable feature when visibility is limited is the foxtrot model’s digital maps that highlight any terrain 200 feet below or above the altitude the Chinook is flying. The digital maps also keep the pilot from having to reach for paper maps mid-flight.
The digital displays on the whole make flying much easier than the gauges they replaced, Carroll and Sauer said. For example, a rundown of the day’s missions popped up and the pilots typed in coordinates to automatically land the Chinook at the exact target time for each leg.
At FOB Shinkay, Flipper 20 picks up eight passengers — or what the crew calls PAX — while Flipper 13 circles overhead. The FOBs stick out from the mud buildings that dot the countryside, one of the few signs of the 21st century.
Next stop is FOB Apache. Apache sits next to FOB Eagle, built next to the ruins of Alexander the Great’s castle.
“Pretty crazy, right?” Sherwood said over the radio.
For this mission, the Chinooks flew without Apache helicopter escorts because the threat of rocket-propelled grenades is not as high as in more urban areas, where the Taliban has more influence.
The Chinooks flew on to FOB Eagle to pick up more passengers and kicker boxes filled with an assortment of supplies. Then they headed to Qalat, a key city in Zabul province. The passengers got off and Loiseau ran out to help with refueling the helo.
FOB Mizan, also in Zabul province, was the last stop for Army Times. U.S. and Afghan soldiers raced out to the landing zone to greet the Chinooks, which were bringing them much-needed water and mortar rounds. Their last supply arrived five days before.
“It’s the Chinooks that help us from getting cut off,” said Sgt. 1st Class Victor Delvalle, the platoon sergeant at Mizan. “We definitely needed that water.”
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/army_chinook_032910w/