Originally Posted by
Guzz
Evening fellow Pruners,
I'm currently updating my tactics briefs for work, particularly my evasion training presentations. I want to engage the audience a little more rather than the "If he does A consider countering with B" boring waffle.
I was wondering if any of you fast and pointy jocks had any interesting tales about engaging helicopters you would care to share? What made it difficult? What made it easy? Were there any times you came off worse?
What about my RW colleagues? I've heard most of Evalu8ters dits (with the corresponding hands in the bar) but what about the rest of you? Any tales of daring deeds vs the fast jet community?
Hopefully not covered by previous dits, but back in the dark ages when Helicopter vs FJ tactics were first being considered, some very pertinent sighting issues came out which led to significant changes in our kit.
The FJ drivers were able to pick up the white helmets first, then the white gloves, then the yellow mae wests; all of which gave excellent targets to ensure the helicopter wasn't going anywhere after the first pass.
Following that we (eventually) got green helmets, green gloves and the Mk15 LSJ with the flame orange stole neatly hidden behind olive green. A bonus was that we could watch the dials and gauges without filtering out the reflection of the yellow mae west!
Another long range visual pick was a Wessex with an odd coloured blade, which stuck out like the proverbial dog's as it flickered when seen from above. This has led (in much later years) to rotor blade patterns developed for ops such as aerial fire fighting, where visibility in smoke and high intensity flying is a relatively important issue.