How the RAAF Iroquois camouflage scheme originated
The development of the RAAF Iroquois camouflage devolved indirectly from the Vietnam War so please tolerate a background ramble before we get to the substance of how a camouflaged fleet emerged.
In January 1969, then Group Captain 'Bay' Adams, DFC, AFC was Task Force Air Commander for 1 Australian Task Force in Vietnam - he gets mentions in Pierre Klosterman's great book 'The Big Show' regarding WW2 happenings. We often discussed supposed helicopter vulnerability/survivability way after bar closure and one particular incident in PK's book understandably influenced his thinking. Have mislaid my copy of the book but they were both in a flight of 8 Typhoons attacking a Luftwaffe airfield. The German flak tower gunners were on the ball and only Pierre and Bay survived the attack.
Digressing a bit more; big Bay was flying with me one day (me then Squadron Leader) and we were leading the second of 2 flights of 4 Iroquois to extract a company of infantry from a fairly tight clearing in jungle. We landed sort of in pretty compressed finger four formation (so-called heavy left) squeezed up on the first flight.
The Group Captain was flying and I told him to just hold the aircraft lightly on the skids when we touched down because the condition of dry grass covered ground beneath was uncertain. He was a big man and did not yet have a sensitive feel for chopper ops so somewhat dumped the collective whereupon we began to roll backwards experiencing some slight juddering from mast bumping by the rotorhead. I grabbed control and eased forward as much as we dared before handing over and advising him to just keep a bit more power on so we were light on the skids. But he seemed not to grasp what I meant and again lowered the collective too far whereupon the ground collapsed beneath us or we perhaps teetered on an old artillery shell crater hidden in the longish dry grass. Mast bumping was then quite severe and I decided we had to shut down to inspect for damage.
We had managed to shift a little to firmer ground before shutdown and I then noticed the forward edge of the LZ on fire – an infanteer had previously thrown a smoke grenade and rotorwash from the forward aircraft blew the white hot canister on to dry grass. I climbed up onto the cabin and the mast did not seem dented. The green men were very jumpy having had multiple contacts with the opposition and I recall looking down into a seeming myriad of wide open eyes with them all doubtless thinking: 'Oh no; what the hell is he doing up there?' I am pretty sure I decided to fly it out but my mind is now blank re that aspect, although I do recall big Bay saying when I was back in the cockpit something like: 'That was a brave thing to do' and I responded: 'No; the bloody pad is on fire.' He seemingly had not noticed that being more concerned with what might have happened to the aircraft.
Forward to post-Vietnam in 1972 after I had established the helicopter operations cell at RAAF Headquarters Operational Command and become the inaugural HOPS. I felt it very important that any lessons from Vietnam War operations should be recognised and that the Air Force should also seek to improve and further develop techniques for helicopter operations in less permissive air environments, night operations and field deployment mobility.
The seeds were sown on files and 5SQN subsequently conducted some very thorough trialling of early generation night vision goggles revealing the need for safe procedures concerning their usage. Sadly, this awareness seemingly later got lost when battlefield helos were transferred from Air Force to Army Aviation in 1989. The evidence given by the former CO 5SQN to the Army Court of Inquiry concerning the Blackhawk mid-air collision at Townsville in 1996 was apparently not adequately reflected in proceedings.
I was appointed CO 9SQN early January 1976. Sometime soon thereafter, we received a direction from HQOC to begin some development work on fighter versus helicopter tactics. A few of us at the squadron had previously flown fighters and saw this as inspirational.
We decided a matt finish Iroquois camouflage scheme would probably be beneficial and discovered there were only 2 suitable paints in the supply system although pretty appropriate colours. As with the gunship development project, it was wiser to stick with materials already in the inventory than trying to fight for funding of something different. So, I selected a few sample camouflage schemes from magazines and told the junior aircrew to come up with some draft ideas utilising the 2 available paint colours.
A couple of weeks went by with nil progress and seeming low interest so I got a bit exasperated, gathered up all of the material and took it home to our kids, explaining to them why a camouflage scheme was required. We had 5 daughters and the eldest 3 sat down with pads, crayons, etcetera. After about 3 days of the usual tribal squabbling, number 3 daughter came to me and said: 'Here's your new colour scheme Dad.' So, we took it across to the 3 Aircraft Depot Paint Shop where the guys made just a couple of minor adjustments and said: 'That's workable.'
We fired the proposed colour scheme off to HQ Operational Command and HQ Support Command, the latter being the Air Force engineering and equipment authority. Eventually, HQSC authorised painting of only 4 aircraft which was not going to be practicable. The squadron had 8 aircraft deployed in 3 separate detachments in PNG and Indonesia for virtually the whole year to support Army Survey Corps operations, had to provide ongoing Army support training in Australia and New Zealand, cope with whatever other national commitment tasking emerged and provide resources for the fighter versus helicopter tactics development activities. Just guessing now, but we probably had around 30 x C-130s in and out over the year shuffling Iroquois wherever.
In those circumstances, it was absolutely imperative to maintain the traditional maintenance stagger to ensure optimum on-line availability of aircraft. It would have been impossible to do this if the 4 aircraft to be camouflaged had to be more or less reserved for the tactics development trials so we protested to HQSC who came back and said we could paint 5. That was also unworkable and after about 20 seconds of thought, the solution became obvious.
We decided to trickle 5 through the 3AD Paint Shop to satisfy the official approval and quietly establish our own painting facility in the least conspicuous corner of the crowded hangar which we shared with 12SQN who operated Chinooks. As aircraft progressively emerged from 250 hour 'D' servicings, we would either slot them to 3AD for painting or do them in-squadron, rotating aircraft through the detachments as necessary by C-130 and always giving the appearance back at Amberley that we only had a few painted in the new camouflage scheme.
Come the end of the year, all of the birds came home to roost and one day near Christmas, the Group Captain CO 482 Maintenance Squadron, who was the pseudo HQSC representative on the base, was snooping around and came across this fleet of camouflaged Iroquois. He barged into my office protesting: 'What's the meaning of this; you were only authorised to paint 5 aircraft?' I responded: 'We had heavy operational commitments and some of your blunt mates at HQSC wanted to make it impossible for us to maintain the maintenance stagger, so we made an operational decision and painted the bloody lot.' He stomped out of the office and very soon after, the camouflage scheme was adopted for the entire Air Force Hotel model Iroquois fleet.
The moral in this story is never underestimate the creative potential of children.
SPOT THE HUEYS
We participated in the fighter versus helo tactics development trials and had great fun playing with Mirages and Macchis - 5SQN was also further involved downstream. But ultimately, the invaluable reservoir of 26 years of wide-ranging helo operations - including extensive combat experience for which there is no substitute - and the operating capabilities development work conducted post-Vietnam was sacrificed by the foolish politico/military decision to transfer Air Force battlefield helicopter assets to Army Aviation. Australia's military expertise and capacity has undoubtedly suffered.
Air Vice Marshal Bay Adams, CBE, DFC, AFC had served as Director Joint Operations & Plans in Canberra post-Vietnam, became Chief of Air Force Operations and AOC Operational Command preceding retirement in 1979. He was strongly supportive of the capabilities improvements initiatives for the RAAF helicopter force. We occasionally bumped while still serving and he would inevitably say: 'Remember that day when we were flying together in Vietnam?' and my answer was always: 'I remember!' Very sadly, he succumbed to illness in 1990. A fine man, great leader and a true warrior.
Some more thoughts on camouflage considerations in a later post.
Last edited by Bushranger 71; 6th February 2011 at 18:39.