The Army

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The Army

Well, I'm in Alaska. It must be the coldest place on Earth. That would explain all the snow on the ground. Actually, it's not that cold...yes I've been out when it was -55°F, but it doesn't seem that cold. Maybe my nerves were frozen?

When I joined the Army in 2000. I had to go to Basic Training (even though I had already went through USAF Basic Training). That was Ft. Benning, Georgia. After that I was sent to Mother Rucker (Ft. Rucker), Alabama. There I attended Warrant Officer Candidate School (WOCS). I stayed at Ft. Rucker to attend flight school.

Flight School consisted of the following phases: Primary, Instruments, Basic Combat Skills (BCS), Nights, Warrant Officer Basic Course (WOBC), and then Aircraft Qualification Course (AQC).

Primary was 8 weeks long, and we flew the TH-67. The TH-67, is actually a Bell 206 JetRanger Helicopter. In Primary we learned the parts and pieces to the helicopter, basic maneuvers, basic emergency procedures, and we learned how to drop from 1000 ft to the ground without breaking the aircraft in an autorotation. In Primary, you do hundreds of autorotations. Over and over again. From a hover, from the air, and from the air with a 180° turn, you autorotate. Oh, you also learn to hover. After you learn and do it a while, it doesn't seem that hard. But that day that the instructor tells you, "Ok, you have the controls." and then lets go...and you hold that hover...steady as a rock...for about .0005 second before the helicopter begins to turn and slide and starts to go up and/or down. Its probably the funniest and sometimes scariest thing you will do. After a few days you get the hang of it, but you are not steady as a rock at all.

In Instruments, we learn how to fly when you are in the clouds, or really bad weather. Sound easy enough. Just follow the dials, and flip some switches and your a pro right? Not really... there is a lot more than that. Some people cannot grasp the concept, and its hard because you are in the cloud, can not see anything, trusting your instruments (even though your body is saying your leaning, the instruments says your straight...the instruments are right!), and you don't know where you are, where you are going, how to get there, and then there are special procedures to fly in there. Not to mention all the chatter on the radio. It can be a lot to grasp. Since only 5 weeks ago you were just learning to hover. And in the infinite wisdom of the Army, time in the air is more important than on the ground (TRUE), so only the IP's can hover around for the 10 weeks that you are in Instrument training. Hovering is a PERISHABLE skill. After weeks of spinning around in the clouds, watching the little dials, and flipping the swicthes, you finally break out of the clouds and you are lined up with the runway and you realize "this stuff really works!" However, you don't really know what you've done, or how you got there, but whatever it was, it worked.

So, your now out of the clouds in Basic Combat Skills. On day one, the IP says, "Pick it up to a hover." Keep in mind that you haven't hovered in over 10 weeks ( 17 weeks in my case because we had a "bubble," too many students and not enough instructors). So hovering, being a perishable skill, is now another hill you must overcome AGAIN! And then you get to autorotate again. But this time your in a OH-58A/C. A lot like the TH-67, but with a longer tail rotor shaft, and larger rotor blade. It also does NOT have all the pretty plastic lining in the cockpit with the carpet...it's a military aircraft now. But you can fly with the doors off. That is fun. There is nothing like looking down at you feet and seeing the ground a few inches away, and 1000 feet below. You realize that that seatbelt is the only thing holding you in the cockpit. Visibility is much better though! But after the first couple of weeks learning how to hover and autorotate again, you learn to navigate on military maps. Learn pilotage and dead reckoning, and how loud your IP can be when you accidentally fly over that "No Fly" area you forgot to mark on your map! You learn to hover between trees, give spot reports on simulated enemy location, react to simulated enemy fire, mask and unmask. Then you get to release all you frustrations of navigating because your IP will navigate and you get to fly. The IP says, "Stay about 50 feet above the tree tops and bank 30° when I say left or right and 60° when I say hard left or hard right. And do not hit a tree or any wires." Zipping along the tree tops is fun. Don't forget you are in the Army and in training, Army training is not suppose to be fun. But you are having a blast. Low level flight, contour flight, and nape of the earth flight (NOE). This is what Army aviation is all about. Then there is the formation flight. Quite difficult to do at first. Trying to keep up with the aircraft in front of you as they whip up and down. Speeding up and slowing down and hoping the guy behind you is slowing down when you slow down. Being rear ended in a helicopter is very serious. To many spinning parts and of course GRAVITY. Gravity always wins!

Nights. Flying at night is just like flying during the day, except you can't see. If you are going down, at night, turn on your landing light; if you don't like what you see, turn it back off. During nights you get to sleep in, in the mornings. You get to wear night vision goggles. You get to turn night into "day" with the goggles. However the "day" is very green. At first you are amazed at how well these things work. I mean you look around and cannot see anything, pop the goggles down and you can see nearly everything. You quickly realize that you can fly with these. All the stuff you learned in the last 28 plus weeks are all sinking in. The aircraft is an extension of yourself. You are controlling the aircraft without thinking about it, it becomes natural. And you need some aspirin because those goggles begin to hurt your eyes, the helmet is heavier now, your neck begins to hurt. And now you have to navigate again...in the dark. Thank God it is only a few weeks long.

Warrant Officer Basic Course was back to the administrative portion of being an officer. Except it is tailored to Aviation Warrant Officers. You learn the most important thing about being an aviator in the Army. This is the one thing you will cherish or curse the entire time you are in the Army...which aircraft you are going to fly. Some people get the aircraft they have desired for a long time, some people don't know what they want and just pick one at the end, some people hate certain aircraft and get "stuck" with that aircraft, because there is nothing left. This decision will usually determine how long this aviator will stay in the Army. But you learn more of the administrative stuff about your aircraft. Such as how to plan Air Assaults, etc. And then you get to learn about survival in the woods. Class B SERE School. Learn how to not eat for a week, there is no secret you just don't have food! Learn to evade, and evade through the woods at night. Get picked up at you PZ. And you get to have an Aviation Ball! Get to wear the Blues that you are required to buy. And then...GRADUATION. You graduated after WOCS and got your "spot," but this was different now you are getting your wings. Now when I was a young boy I dreamed of getting my wings. I always assumed they would be Air Force wings, but wings were wings. My grandfather, Thomas William Baine III, had Army Aviator wings (because he was in the Army Air Corps, later to be named the US Air Force), so I had the same wings he was pinned over 50 years before. That meant something to me! But needless to say I got pinned. And I loved it. No one could have knocked me off my pedestal that day. My dream, slightly altered, was accomplished!

The following is a link to the Alaska Post regarding the change over from the Rising Eagle insignia to the Aviation Branch Insignia for Warrant Officers,

When you hear 'Watch This,' hang on for the ride.

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