by Ed Macy
I was barely keeping us airborne. First we’d been netted; now we were being reeled in. It was only a matter of time before the wires would tighten on the exposed tail rotor drive shaft as it spun at over 5,000 rpm; we were about to be garrotted.
I snatched a glance to our right. The hilltop was too far away; I pointed the nose towards the slope, using a rock as a marker, and shoved the cyclic forward.
Prairie grass ten feet in front of us filled the bubble cockpit. We were going in, head on.
Andy went into Pantomime Dame Mode: ‘I’m too young to die…’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I screamed back.
With an almighty yank back on the cyclic the nose came up forty-five degrees to match the rake of the slope. I kicked us left a little and dumped the collective lever halfway down. The skids hit the hillside hard and for a moment it looked like we’d stuck solid.
Then we began to slide backwards.
‘Nooo…’ Andy yodelled, but before he could draw breath we shuddered to a halt again.
The rock I’d been aiming to use as a chock was stuck behind the left skid and holding us fast.
My right hand shot up to the fuel cut off lever. The engine whine stopped instantly and the screeching began to fade. I pulled the collective up to slow the blades before pulling on the rotor brake.
Silence.
Andy gave me the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
‘Do you have any fucking idea how hard I was working?’ I said. ‘And how close we just came to dying?’
He just kept smiling like a halfwit.
‘Have you got anything to say?’
‘As a matter of fact I have.’ His expression became instantly serious. ‘Can I have a fag in here? Cos my door’s wired closed and I’m gasping…’
He wasn’t wrong. We were trussed like a turkey.
Twenty minutes later our flight commander and the CO came sliding down the hill towards us. After the CO had taken pictures, a technician cut us free so we could assess the damage. The wires had all but severed the tail rotor drive shaft. Steve McQueen would have been proud of us. He’d used the same trick in The Great Escape to snag himself a motorbike.
‘Should have been collected in after firing,’ the CO said. ‘For you two, the war is over.’
I pulled a copy of Low Level Hell from my jacket and waved it at him.
‘The Bible says we need to pick up another bird and get right back out here, sir. The war’s not over yet.’
‘You’d pick a fight with your own shadow, Macy, given half a chance. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.’
A week later our two Gazelles were sitting on a hill, awaiting the battle due to kick off in the small hours of the next morning. This was the big one, as real as it got at BATUS, and I wanted to show what our Gazelles were made of.
We were due to mix it with artillery fire, tank rounds, armed recce cars, mounted machine guns, mortars, Milan anti-tank missiles, jets dropping bombs and our own Lynx helicopters. It was what we had all trained for-as close to a real battle as it was possible to be-and I knew we were more than capable of acquitting ourselves well.
Lieutenant Colonel Iain Thomson was here to validate our regiment during the final BATUS exercise. Tommo was the revered CO of 9 Regiment Army Air Corps. He was a legendary leader and knew how to get the best out of his men, but he was a scary bastard too.
He held the power of life or death-he was there to assess whether we were ready for war fighting. I was determined not to let our side down.
We had a BATS box fitted into the rear of the Gazelle, in place of one of the seats. It would transmit our position at all times to Exercise Control. Excon was the hub of the mock battle, where the invigilators watched the conflict play out on a giant screen.
We had been on the prairie for six weeks and after a disastrous beginning had kicked tanky arse in every battle since. I wanted Tommo and the brass to know how good we were, how fast and low we could go, how quickly we could pick up the enemy and how we could shape the battle for the commanding officer. We were the CO’s scouts and wielded more power than our little helicopter looked capable of.
The bloody ‘Red Tops’ were our only problem-Gazelles painted a horrific shade of anti-collision Day-Glo red, flown by range officers whose job was to ensure that we flew within safety limits. They could hand us a yellow card if we flew into the wrong area or in front of somebody else’s weapon system. Worse still, they’d give away our position by hovering over us at a couple of thousand feet. Because we went fast and low, the ‘enemy’ tanks relied on the Red Tops to track our stealthy battle positions.
Following my first protest the Red Tops were told to fly low and behind us, but the bastards still managed to give us away because they never flew low enough. They needed to see the big picture, to ensure safety procedures were being observed. As a result, the tankies brought more artillery down to shoot us out of the sky. I’d been told quite firmly by Excon to wind my neck in; there is no way I was going into this battle without the Red Top escort. End of story.
If there was one man this side of the pond that could get in their way it was Tommo. I couldn’t ask him because he didn’t know me and would probably tell me to wind my neck in as well, so I told Excon that Tommo didn’t want us given away by Red Tops. I reckoned they wouldn’t dare speak to him, so we’d get to fly alone.
Job done. Or so I thought.
Tommo strode over to the four of us like he was going to convert me between the posts.
I was alongside Andy Wawn. As an ex-tanky he’d taught me a whole lot of Standard Operating Procedures-how to find his old mates, interpret their intentions and lull them into inescapable ambushes. Andy was a cheeky fucker who loved a confrontation. He cupped his hand around my right ear. ‘You know when I said “we” should bluff Excon?’ he whispered. ‘Well that was like a Royal “we”. I’m just the chauffeur here. Better get your boxing gloves on, Macy.’
‘You lot,’ Tommo announced, hands on hips, ‘will be followed by Red Tops in the morning.’
I heard my flight commander stifle a groan. Dom didn’t know I’d bluffed Excon; he thought we’d been given permission.
Man or mouse time, Macy. I took a step forward.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dom wince as I fronted up to the CO. ‘Sir, every battle we’ve ever been in those Red Tops have given our position away.’
Tommo bristled. ‘And you are?’
‘Staff Sergeant Macy, sir.’
‘Well, Staff, I’ll just get them to fly low level behind you. How about that?’
‘Sir, we’ve tried that and they still give our position away. At dawn we’ll be looking into the sun and won’t be able to see very well, so we’ll be constantly on the move. Having them there is like having the hand of God pointed at us.’ I paused. ‘The tankies spot them every time…’
Tommo looked at me much as he might an insect moments before he crushed it. ‘I don’t see where this conversation is going, Staff Macy, do you? This exercise is fucking dangerous enough.’
My mind was fizzing.
‘I couldn’t agree more, sir. The Red Tops will be blocking our routes out, and won’t see us against the low sun. They’re supposed to be there for safety reasons, but could cause a mid-air collision.’
‘Staff Macy, if you think for one moment I’m allowing you out without a minder, you’re very much fucking mistaken.’
‘Sir, we have a transponder onboard that will track our position perfectly. It’s displayed in Excon on the big map board. We’ve tested it and it works great. And we have our comms if necessary. There should be no need for Red Tops.’
He hesitated for a moment. ‘If you disappear off that board for a second, you’re for it.’ Tommo had clearly had enough of the conversation. He fixed me with a last beady stare. ‘Do I make myself blindingly bloody clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He stormed off, and I turned to find Dom holding his head in his hands. Tommo wasn’t a man to cross and
the BATS boxes had been known to be temperamental.
‘Let’s just live with the Red Tops’, Dom said. ‘It’s only an exercise.’
I couldn’t blame him for worrying. He was on attachment from the Scots Dragoon Guards and praying that the AAC would take him on; he had a lot to lose.
‘Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll check ‘em before we take off.’
An hour before dawn, I leaned into the back of each Gazelle, switched on the BATS boxes, and wandered over to the Excon Portakabin where a sergeant confirmed that Hotel Two Zero Alpha and Hotel Two Zero Bravo had, indeed, registered on their computerised map.
I got back to the boss. ‘We’re on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
It had to be a hundred to one against both transponders failing. Tommo wouldn’t be too pissed if one dropped off radar; he knew we worked as a pair. As long as we won he’d be doing too many back flips to care.
Staying nicely hidden and looking into the morning sun was proving unworkable. Whatever was sneaking through the wadis below the horizon was invisible to us.
‘Hotel Two Zero Alpha this is Hotel Two Zero Bravo. We need to outflank them in their own backyard,’ I called to Dom. ‘I’m blind…’
‘One Zero Alpha, my thought exactly. Your lead.’
‘Head along that wadi there.’ I pointed the way. ‘We need to keep this low and fast. Get me eyes-on those tanks and don’t even dare come into the hover; we’ll be too sharp.’
‘Awesome dude,’ Andy said. ‘But how the fuck are we going to see them if you won’t let me hover?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’
Andy was in his element. ‘Yee-ha, low level hell. This is what I joined up for.’ The floor passed beneath us at an alarming speed and proximity.
‘There’ll be hell to pay if you clip a ridge or fly through wires again. Bring the speed back a touch.’ Height and speed were both okay, but Andy was getting a fraction overexcited. I didn’t want an action replay of our Swingfire stunt.
Dom called a halt to our advance when we were close enough to bump into the tanks’ advanced recce. He scanned a stretch of ground that ran for about 500 metres up to a small bank directly in front of us. ‘Move,’ he called.
‘Moving.’
I told Andy to get me behind the ridge.
His voice rose an octave. ‘I’m ten feet off the shagging floor…’
‘Then you’re ten feet too high.’
The skids barely touched the ground as we scooted across the crest of the hill.
‘Run the aircraft onto the ground and don’t come into the hover. You’ll kick up too much dust.’
He skidded to a halt and turned to me. ‘What the fuck now?’
‘Sit tight.’
I unstrapped, climbed out and ran up the bank.
Peering through my binos I spotted the vanguard of the tanks.
Twenty minutes later we were behind them and slightly off to one flank. There was no way they’d expect that.
The CO was ecstatic and moved his Lynx into place. The artillery opened up the show and then we brought in wave after wave of fast jets, only breaking to drop more artillery on them. In what was now a well-rehearsed manoeuvre, a squadron of Lynx simultaneously unleashed their misery on the tanks before disappearing again.
The show wasn’t over. A handful of tanks had been hiding behind a fold in the ground and were now running with nowhere to hide. I called in a pair of Lynx and we all moved to head them off. We provided cover on either side of the Lynx; we were well inside the tanks’ sector now and had to be on our guard. The Lynx hammered the last of the tanks and we bugged out to the greatest news of all. One of the Lynx had dispatched the tank regiment’s CO, a man that had never once been killed on the prairie.
When we landed back at Excon, Tommo was waiting for us, arms akimbo and feet as far apart as they could be. I was looking forward to hearing what he thought of us managing to get in behind the enemy and smack the CO too.
‘Get your fucking flight commander,’ he boomed at me. ‘I want a word with the both of you.’
Shit. I’d flown right along the boundary, but I was sure we’d not crossed it. Dom would have alerted me. A moment or two later, we were both standing in front of Tommo.
‘Where the fucking hell have you two been? You promised me I would be able to see you at all times, and yet you never appeared on the map once!’
My flight commander looked devastated. Tommo wielded a shed load of power in the Army Air Corps and was destined for the highest of appointments. He could kill careers with one swipe of his pen.
‘I checked the system before we took off and we were on the map, sir…’
‘Another one of your promises, Macy? What do you expect me to believe? You’re not on radar, no one knows where you are, and all of a sudden you two know the location of every fucking tank in Canada. If you switched the transponders off you are both for the fucking high jump. Do you hear me?’
‘Sir…’ I pointed towards the Excon Portakabin. ‘I was on radar two minutes before we left and was assured I could be tracked at all times.’
The sergeant who’d confirmed the presence of our Gazelles on the screen was at his keyboard. I chose my words carefully. ‘Would you let the Colonel know exactly when we met and what I asked you?’
‘Er…yes, sir.’ His eyes batted nervously between me and Tommo. He couldn’t bring himself to hold the big man’s 2,000-yard death stare. I couldn’t blame him. Sterner mortals had wilted under Tommo’s withering gaze. ‘He came in last night to check that his BATS box was working.’
Tommo jumped in with both feet. ‘Then why couldn’t I see him even once throughout the entire battle?’
‘You could, sir. Surely…’ The sergeant looked down at his computer. ‘One moment.’ His face began to redden. ‘Oh, he’s not there…’
‘Make your fucking mind up, man!’
After a few frantic keystrokes, the screen changed. ‘Er…here he is at the start, sir, next to the other Gazelle Hotel Two Zero Alpha-see.’
Tommo leaned forward. ‘Then what?’
The sergeant tapped away furiously, running the battle at warp speed. The icons began to move. They both examined the screen in minute detail, then Tommo turned and gave me a look designed to kill.
‘Well fucking well. You both disappeared together, in fucking unison, the second you got into the exercise area.’
I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking I’d switched off the boxes and gone black.
I needed to get to grips with this, and quickly. ‘Why did we disappear?’
‘I’m just checking, sir,’ the sergeant replied nervously. ‘Oh, there you go. Someone deleted you shortly after you took off. It must have been an accident. Lots of callsigns were lost at the same time, see…’ He pointed at the monitor. ‘We must have forgotten to load you back on with the others.’
At the debrief that followed, I realised that Tommo was impressed by what we’d done. I also knew that he was going to be the last to admit it.
Soon after I got back to the UK I heard that 9 Regiment Army Air Corps would be the first unit to take delivery of the Apache, slated for arrival in September 2003, a little less than three years away. I called Major Tucker, my course leader on grading, who was now the OC of 656 Squadron and asked him if he’d be willing to have me in his squadron.
‘You’re welcome in Six Five Six,’ he said. ‘But I won’t be here when the Apache arrives, and I don’t have the final say-so on this one, Mr Macy.’
‘Who does?’
‘The CO,’ he replied. ‘From what I can gather, Colonel Thomson is handpicking the Apache crews personally.’
My heart sank. After our run-in at BATUS, I couldn’t see him accepting me in his regiment in a million years, let alone selecting me for the Apache programme.
I called 9 Regiment’s only other Apache designated squadron Officer Commanding to hedge my bets. Tommo would be gone by the time 664 Squadron did the Apache conversion course.
If I couldn’t get into 656 as an Apache pilot perhaps I could go that route. OC 664 told me that the crews would be handpicked from the regiment and anyone not selected would have to do a Lynx conversion course. If I didn’t get selected for Apache, I would end up on Lynx and that would end my SAS quest.
ONE ON ONE
From 1998 onwards, I decided I’d amass so much indispensable knowledge about attack helicopters that the Army Air Corps would have no choice but to select me for the Apache when it eventually entered service. I began by reading up everything on attack helicopters I could find. The next part of the strategy was to get myself on an Air Combat Tactics Instructor’s (ACTI) course.
A helicopter, by its very nature, is a vulnerable machine. Unlike a combat aircraft, it cannot rely on speed to get it out of trouble over the battlefield. The policy of the British Army, which did not own a dedicated attack helicopter force, was for its pilots to avoid trouble if they possibly could. This entailed remaining covert-flying down in the weeds-or remaining at ‘stand-off’ engagement ranges: attacking tanks outside the range of their offensive weaponry.
But with the Apache it would be different. The Apache had started life as part of a very exclusive club. Before the Berlin Wall fell, there were precious few attack helicopters in existence. The Soviets had developed a fearsome machine called the Mil Mi-24 Hind and the Americans had developed the Apache and the Cobra. There were other attack helicopters on the drawing board or in development when the Wall fell, but these three were the only ones that mattered.
With their enormous defence budget, the Americans bought the Cobra and the Apache in large quantities. Other less prosperous NATO nations had opted instead for machines like the Lynx, the Gazelle and the German BO105.
The first Gulf War brought things into sharp focus. The utility of the Americans’ Apaches quickly became self-evident. In the aftermath of the conflict, NATO nations began to accelerate their attack helicopter plans and numerous competitions were launched across Europe to determine the best machine for the job. The Apache began to find itself in contention with the Eurocopter Tiger and new developments of the Cobra. But it had been massively updated, too, from the ‘A’ model that first entered service with the US Army in the 1980s, to the ‘D’ model, which was equipped with the new Longbow radar system.