Sweating the Metal

by Alex Duncan

  We flew the route from Bastion at high altitude as the ridges surrounding Kajaki Dam go up to 6,000ft plus. Hannah was ahead as lead and our Apache escort called the Widow call sign at Kajaki to obtain clearance. Hannah was cleared in straight away, while Alex and I went to hold further up the lake.

  If I’m honest, we were more or less doing a bit of war tourism, so I wasn’t complaining. There are worse places to fly a holding pattern than over the forbiddingly beautiful lake and surrounding topography at Kajaki – it’s not like you could ever grow bored of the view. We ended up holding for some twenty minutes, a lot longer than expected, before Hannah advised us that she was lifting. I repositioned the aircraft at low level over the lake pointing to the south-west, in order to see her as she came out flying over the dam.

  There are two ways in and out of Kajaki. You fly over the dam to get in, but as the landing site is so low in the valley, you need to watch your speed as you cross it and ensure it remains above 60kts or you end up flirting with Vortex Ring, a phenomenon in which the rotors lose lift at speeds below 30kts and a rate of descent above 500ft per minute.

  There is however a sluice gate further to the east-north-east of the dam which is literally a cut in the mountain. You fly through it at 50ft with the sides of the mountain close on each side, pressing in on you and making you feel small even though you’re in 99ft of aircraft. You end up following the Helmand River as it winds down the valley, which increases the distance to the landing site and allows you to carry more speed on the approach. This is what I opted to do for my run in.

  Everything has limits and that includes the Chinook’s capabilities. Regardless of what it can do in ideal conditions – cold and as close to sea level as possible – the higher and hotter you go, the greater the impact on what you can lift. So Afghanistan in summer – very hot and very high – is not exactly ideal. For this sortie, we were tasked and limited to picking up twenty-one soldiers.

  As soon as I landed on, Bob came over the intercom. ‘Er, two minutes, Frenchie mate, we’ve got somebody approaching and he wants a chat. It looks like we’ve got at least thirty blokes here. I’m going off-intercom.’

  Five minutes later, he’s back.

  ‘Okay Frenchie, this is the deal. We have twenty-one guys as flagged on the task sheet to go back to Bastion. We also have twelve guys with their kit for R&R. They didn’t get on a Chinook yesterday, as it broke down, so they missed their TriStar home. The dickhead in the tasking cell obviously didn’t think of putting them on another cab so they’re trying to hitch a ride.’

  Shit. I don’t want to leave them here, but how the fuck am I going to get airborne with that many bodies?

  ‘Okay, let me think about it for a minute,’ I say.

  The clock for R&R starts as soon as front line troops leave their units, so if they stay fourteen days at Kajaki, or their aircraft goes tech and they spend nine days waiting for a replacement, it makes no difference. Regardless of if or when they get home, as far as their parent unit is concerned they’ve had their fourteen days R&R. It sucks, but that’s how it is.

  I want to take them but I have a problem: the aircraft’s available power. What we have in hand is enough for us to lift one-and-a-half tonnes above the limit given to me by the taskers and, if I’m honest, I’m not sure my trusty Chinook can even achieve that.

  Things are compounded by our location; the only way out is up and over the dam. However the dam rises high ahead, with steep sides left and right and some wires strung across the wall and mountain sides. Then I recall a technique that I learned way back in my early days at RAF Odiham from Bill Thompson, my first instructor on the Chinook. He was old even then, but God that man knew how to fly. What he didn’t know was not worth knowing and he had probably forgotten more than I’ll ever learn.

  We were on an instructional sortie and he showed me how to accelerate using the minimum of power by using the air cushion that builds up under the aircraft. Doing this, you build up enough speed to climb and you use the Chinook’s unique aerodynamic effect; the airflow from the 10 o’clock.

  I look at Alex with this ‘trust me’ look in my eyes and say, ‘Okay Bob, we’ll take them and we’ll have a shot at clearing the dam. If we can’t make it, then we’ll come back here and I’m afraid they’ll have to wait for the next cab. But guys, as you know, R&R time is running out for them so we have to give it a go.’

  As expected, the guys agree immediately. Now for the hard part. Bob gets them all on board. Thirty-three people and their kit instead of the twenty-one we were expecting. I’m not even sure this will work.

  ‘CAP, Ts and Ps, brakes off, clear lift?’ I check.

  ‘Clear above and behind,’ says Coops.

  ‘Lifting,’ I say, heaving on the collective. I can feel the aircraft is heavier immediately; the engine notes rise in pitch as both strain to deliver everything they have, and the lever in my hand is almost in my armpit. We are well into the ten-minute power band and only just in the hover.

  ‘Okay chaps, I’ll go down the river towards Kajaki town – not too far though, because we all know what a shithole it is. We’ll use that as the run-up and I’ll bias myself on the left-hand side of the dam. In the event that we run out of power and climb, I’ll be able to see clearly from the right-hand seat into a right-hand turn back to the landing site. Any questions?’

  There are none. Good, as I’m not sure I’ve got any answers. This is unknown territory. I slowly hover-taxi down the river and turn the aircraft through 180° to face the dam. It looks intimidating ahead of us and as I look at it, I could swear that somebody has just built an extra 10ft on top. It looks like it’s daring me. Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough. I hold us in the hover with nothing in reserve. Well, I can’t look at it forever so fuck it! I go for it.

  I gently trickle the aircraft forward using the ground cushion; it’s a balancing act. I can’t dip the nose too hard or we’ll descend and I don’t have the power available to arrest the descent. If that happens, we’ll hit the river and I don’t even want to think about that.

  Alex is calling the power settings to ensure that I use everything available. The speed is building. ‘Come on Frenchie,’ I think. ‘For once in your life be smooth.’ The speed continues to build . . . 60kts, and half the distance covered. I know that in about 10–15kts I’ll be at what we call minimum power speed; this is the speed at which most power is available, where the aircraft is at its most efficient. 65kts; 70kts. ‘Come on!’ 75kts; 80kts.

  I take a quick look and notice that I’ve actually lowered the lever to maintain my low altitude; I have spare power, but is it enough? The dam rises before us; it’s dead ahead. I pull the lever and take everything the engines have got, every last ounce of power. We climb, but it’s not enough. We’ll never make it.

  ‘You need to increase your rate of climb, matey,’ says Alex, a note of concern in his voice.

  ‘I know mate, but have a look at this,’ I say, with more confidence than I feel. It’s all or nothing now. I carefully apply some right pedal, tipping the aircraft 20° out of balance and therefore putting the airflow in the 10 o’clock of the disc, while still flying on the same track. Suddenly the cab’s rate of climb increases. Just like Old Bill Thompson – Million Dollar Bill – showed me.

  We clear the dam by the barest of margins, but it doesn’t matter – a win’s a win – and as I resume straight flight, I’ve got enough power in hand to climb above the mountains around the lake. I can hear the cheers from the guys in the back even over the sound of the rotors and the whine of the engines. That’s twelve very happy souls back there.

  ‘Fuck me, Frenchie, that was close, but pretty impressive,’ says Alex.

  ‘Cheers mate.’ I feel a lift in myself that more than matches what the cab has given us. It’s been a long day; lots of flying hours and sectors ending with this. It’s thirty to forty-five minutes back to KAF, so I decide to keep the crew occupied on the way there. And there’s nothing lik
e a game of Fuck, Marry, Kill to keep them on the ball . . .

  ‘Mélissa Theuriau, Lorraine Kelly, Kelly Brook,’ I say.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Frenchie,’ says Bob and I think for a moment that I’ve misjudged the mood. ‘You and that bloody Mélissa! Why can’t we play Fuck, Marry, Kill with girls that everyone knows?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bob,’ says Alex. ‘I’ve seen a picture of that Mélissa. Christ, the Daily Express called her the world’s most beautiful news reporter.’

  ‘How’d you know all this?’ Coops asks.

  ‘I looked her up on Google after Frenchie mentioned her on our last Det,’ says Alex. ‘She is one seriously fit woman. You don’t make it easy, do you Frenchie?’

  ‘You think thats tough try this,’ says Coops. ‘Ann Widdecombe, Margaret Thatcher, Harriet Harman!’

  I shake my head. ‘You bastard!’

  ‘I feel sick!’ says Alex. ‘Seriously, Coops . . . that’s a perfect definition of being between a rock and a hard place!’

  Anything that involves the whole crew is good and Fuck, Marry, Kill is a perennial favourite when we’re held off or on those long transits back to KAF or Bastion at height. Funnily enough, we find crews are much more likely to catch something happening on the aircraft when we’re doing this than if they are doing nothing. Anything that gets your brain ticking over is good.

  The guys are happy, I’m happy, and we’ve got thirty-three happy soldiers in the back. Once again the Chinook has delivered more than expected and because of that, we’ve now got twelve troops who are going to be on a TriStar back home tonight.

  ‘Things on a Det don’t get any better than this,’ I think.

  I have no idea how right I am.

  29

  FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

  Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Looking back, it’s so easy to see that the week or so following May 15th was unusual in the extreme but, at the time, there just seemed to be a marked increase in activity on the Taliban’s part. As it turned out, the series of seemingly unrelated events we experienced over that ten-day period were all part of a concerted effort by the Taliban to achieve a series of spectaculars; it was only down to an extraordinary degree of luck, daring, and some spectacular flying by the Chinook Force that they failed.

  Over eight days, several cabs took rounds and an assassination attempt was made against Gulab Mangal, governor of Helmand Province, while I was flying him to Musa Qala. Also, the Taliban used a suicide bomber in a crowded market in a cynical attempt to lure a Chinook into a position where they could try and shoot it down.

  Morris Oxford was the first to experience the Taliban’s renewed sense of purpose when he was diverted in the middle of a normal tasking day. He was flying with Greg Lloyd Davies as ‘Black Cat Two One’. They had just loaded some Canadian troops, along with some freight, when he was called by Bastion Ops over the radio. To many of us in the Chinook Force, his actions in the sortie that followed warranted a gallantry award and it’s inexplicable why he never received recognition. This is his account:

  ‘We were told by Bastion Ops to offload all our pax and await further tasking. It’d taken us the best part of twenty minutes to get them all loaded and then we kicked them all off again. That was not something we’d experienced before, so we were sat there thinking, “What the hell?”

  ‘We were told to get airborne, head north of the field and make contact with another call sign – Wildman One Zero, a Russian Mil Mi-8 (or “Hip”) twin-turbine transport helicopter that’s used by Afghan forces. We were then told to fly to an area just north of Sangin where we’d be performing an emergency extraction of some British troops on the ground there. They’d been inserted earlier that morning by the Wildman call sign and his wingman but they’d come under intense fire from the Taliban almost immediately, and had been involved in a rolling contact ever since – some eight hours by this stage.

  ‘An Apache had been tasked to support us and had gone ahead to provide air support for the troops on the ground, and us once we arrived on station. We held off to the west while we waited for a pair of RAF Harrier GR-9s to fly in and strafe the area. They stormed in and worked their magic, releasing a salvo of CRV7 rockets to take out some of the Taliban in the area, which can’t have been very pleasant for those on the receiving end – they travel at Mach 3 and make quite a mess on impact! After that, we were called in.

  ‘The HLS had been chosen by the ground call sign; it was a reasonably large open area in the middle of a village. Wildman One Zero decided he’d go in first, extract his troops and then we’d go in and extract those remaining. The guys on the ground were desperate – they’d been in a contact for eight hours plus, they were running low on ammunition and things were deteriorating rapidly. Despite the rocket attack by the Harriers, they had to fire and manoeuvre to get away. I don’t think they’d expected the weight of response that met them when they were first landed.

  ‘We got overhead so we were visual with the LS and stayed at height while the Hip made its approach. As it did so, it came under a barrage of heavy small arms fire. Just as it was about to land on, several RPGs were fired at it, missing by mere feet. It was awful to watch – to me, from height, they looked like fireworks, but a strike by any one of those warheads would have splintered the Hip into a million pieces. The pilot managed to overshoot at the very last second and come back up to height with us so we could carry out a visual inspection of his aircraft. I’ve no idea how, but he got away unscathed – given the weight of fire that was ranged at it, that was just astonishing. There was no way we’d be able to get into that HLS – it was just too hot. We had a quick discussion with the Hip, the Apache and the ground call sign and worked out an alternate plan to lift the troops from another LS.

  ‘We were trying to get them to move east about 500m away from the village and towards the desert area. They said it’d take them about thirty minutes. By this stage, we were almost bingo fuel, so we flew back to Bastion with the Hip to refuel; it was about fifteen minutes flying time there, fifteen on the ground for a hot refuel and fifteen minutes back – forty-five minutes in all. Luckily, the Apache had enough fuel to stay on station and provide support until we got back. That support must have been hell for both the Taliban and friendly forces because a lot of it was Danger Close. Being in the immediate vicinity of an Apache’s flechette rocket attack or 30mm cannon fire – even under cover – isn’t an experience I’d like to try. Despite the overwhelming suppressing fire, the Taliban fought on, and the ground troops barely had the breathing space to fire-and-manoeuvre their way to the new HLS. It must have been hell for them.

  ‘When we arrived back, the troops on the ground were surrounded and taking fire from 360°, so we knew if we didn’t get them out we’d be leaving them to die. It was like the Alamo – there’s no way they could have withstood the weight of fire ranged against them for much longer. To make matters worse, the Apache was almost out of ordnance and close to bingo fuel – he reckoned he only had enough for another ten minutes on scene.

  ‘The Apache crew were awesome. Even while laying down suppressing fire, they’d scoped out a routing that would provide us with maximum cover on our run in – a wadi running towards the village. The HLS was an L-shaped compound at the end of the wadi on the right. So, as before, the Hip went in first and we stayed at height orbiting while the Apache led him in. That was impressive and way beyond the AH crew’s call of duty – Apaches almost always stay at height. Not this one – it dropped down to low level and led the Hip right in to the HLS, then overshot to act as a bullet magnet, flying a low orbit to draw Taliban fire. Despite that, the Taliban still opened up on the Hip as it made its descent – small arms fire, RPGs and about three or four mortar rounds too. Luckily they all fell short, landing just outside the compound. If it was hell for the Hip crew, it was no picnic for us either, knowing that we were next up to be the Taliban’s target practice.

  ‘The Hip was only on the ground for about a minute
but as he climbed out, he routed to the south – and took yet more fire as he overflew another enemy position. By now, we were making our run in. The Apache called us and said, “We’ll lead you in,” and I dropped us down into the wadi at 150kts flying 20 on the light, 10 on the noise – as low and as fast as I dared.

  ‘I left it right to the last minute to scrub off my speed, standing the aircraft on its tail. Booting it left and right, I flared on the approach into the compound; we were coming in along the upright of the “L” with the horizontal bit out to the right. As I came in, there were some trees about 25ft high, so I had to get us over those and then drop down. The compound had recently been dug out and I thought for a moment our blades would hit the walls and that’d be it for us, but as our wheels settled on, the blades ended up sitting just above the walls on either side! That in itself was pretty scary!

  ‘I’ve never seen British troops move so fast! They were on the cab within thirty seconds, which really highlights the benefits of the Chinook’s ramp against the Hip’s side-opening door. Quite a few of the soldiers had taken rounds, which indicated the ferocity of the firefights. It was bullets to their legs mostly, although they weren’t “through-and-throughs” – they were mostly grazes. That said though, the guys were pumped up on adrenaline and running as fast and hard as the rest of them! Three stayed on the ramp with Daz Beattie, one of the crewmen, and he said over the intercom, “Morris, if they open fire, I’m going to open fire as well!”

  ‘The lads we’d loaded on said they’d seen us taking rounds on the approach, but as it was daylight and noisy as hell, we hadn’t seen or heard anything. They said they couldn’t believe the weight of fire and we’d got pretty much the same as the Hip when it came in. I was amazed – one, that we hadn’t noticed; but two, that we hadn’t been hit. After watching the Hip taking fire, I’d been worried about following him in, but once I started the run I was so focused on the flying that I didn’t have any spare capacity to feel scared.