Unless I am mistaken, 49 horse riders died in accidents last year. This figure was quoted to us in a brief to us on the new low flying policy.
Announcing the reviews findings on Wednesday, Air Commodore Dick Garwood said: "Any death is completely unacceptable and that is the bottom line.
Whilst I completely agree that any death is unacceptable, if we are forced to fly higher and lose the skills that we have in low flying, how long will it be before we lose a Chinook (or Puma, Sea King, Merlin) that is full of troops? The Chinook alone on Ops can easily handle 60 (or more) troops, God forbid should we lose one. How many deaths then is "Unacceptable?"
Just look at the American statistics of their loss of helicopters and their crews in Iraq and Afghanistan (this figure was quoted to us but alas I cannot remember except to say that it is in the hundreds). There policy is that they would lose more crews in teaching them to low fly on Ops that it does flying around at (helicopter) medium level. Really? How many aircraft have the UK lost then (proportionally less aircraft in theatre accepted)? Of course there have been a number of British aircraft that have returned with bullet holes in them, but the one outstanding fact is that we have lost NONE to enemy action.
Soon I will be returning to Ops and the one thing I will be urging the handling pilot to do is to fly low level. If he/she has skill fade because of some of the public's view on what we do, then I very much hope that those who complain may sleep well at night should the worst happen...
Pilot Pacifier...