Clip 043 | Flying the AH-6 Little Bird | Greg Coker

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You know, it was a tough transition because you go from an apatche that has hydraulic assist and has almost like an autopilot, you know when you're flying, and it's it's a very stable platform to a platform that was designed to develop in nineteen fifty eight and it's still flying today and as far as I'm concerned, it's the greatest helicopter ever built on the planet. But there's no hydraulics in that helicopter. There's it's literally seat of the pants flying. Yeah, you kind of know what that.

You know.

The old guys are like, oh yeah, sea of the pants flying because they didn't have that stick and rudder, you know, no hydraulics, no assists, no technology. But the helicopter fly is really really different. It's not a forgiving aircraft, so it'll it'll get away from you in the blink of an eye. But it is like driving a freaking Ferrari. Man, it is a cool little helicopter.

What kind of changes did you see in the helicopter while you were in the unit?

We had started probably two thousand, so we were looking at you know, and and wait is always the long pole in the tent, you know, our gross, our gross with the J model. I flew the J heavy A eight six J. All military aircraft have a has a letter designation for the model that they're in, So like the eight six A that was the first Loaks, that was the first little bird, and it had a four bladed rotor, two bladed tail roter, and a C eighteen engine which is about I don't know, one hundred and eighty horse power, you know, back back in the day.

But so we had we had gotten with McDonald, Douglas, Bowing, whoever it was back then, but it used to be Hughes helicopter. Mister Hughes designed and developed the eight six. So we started talking to them, looking at upgrading the rotor system, up looked at upgrading the weapons systems and me as and us as old guys, we didn't want any of that glass cockpit.

We wanted to flip, you.

Know, we want to master arm switch and when it went up to arm the guns, would you and and we went through some growing pains with it because of the electronica.

It's all glass, you know, glass.

Upfront, glass down on the panel. But man it up to our gross weight probably three or four hundred pounds, so to us and to the ground force commander, we can carry more bullets, we can carry more gas, which gives more time on station. You know, we tried to make it safer. We redesigned the seats and you know some of the some of the airframe of it to make it more efficient during flight, reduce that parasite drag.

And yeah, that was the AH six M model.

Mike and I did get to fly it a couple of times in combat towards the end. But yeah, it's it's just a heck of a helicopter.

Explain the configures for people that may not be familiar with the aircraft like weapons.

Yes, so there's first there's there's two companies in the one six yet there's a company and there's b company. So a company flies little birds, but they're the lift the little bird Lift company. They have planks on the side of the helicopter where the customers, I still call them customers, where the shooters ride. So we can put now we can put three on each side and then a dog back in the cargo area or whatever the case.

But those helicopters can get in very small places. We can land on you know, real small roofs, or land at the front door, you know, wherever.

So that's their mission.

And then the AH or the attack helicopter is our standard configuration or dual miniguns. We carry Dylan arrow in one thirty four mini guns on the board of the plank, and then we carried two seven shot rocket pods two point seventy five inch rockets on the outboards of the plank. So this plank all it does, It runs through the cargo area right behind the pilots and we just we just hang the guns and the rocket pods on those.

That's pretty wild.

And we can cross if we you know, if a if a co needs an MH, we can strip it. Say here you go, man, here if we need an H. So they're interchanged, you know, we can interchange.

Now.

I've talked to a couple of the pilots before, and Huey pilots use the same aiming standards as you guys do.

They use the old grease.

Pencil on the windscreen, uh, pipper. A lot of you talk to these guys and they're like, yeah, so I count the rivets left and up or whatever, and that's where my spot is. It's how I maintained my spot, which is really awesome.

You know.

It's like a unique way of aiming and maintaining your like where do I aim at? But do you maintain that spot across all your air craft? And if so, then how are the guns zeroed? Are they just zeroed in one way and everybody just everybody learns how to shoot that gun, you know what I'm saying.

Yes, that's a great question.

But our armament personnel, So we had crewchies and then we have armament. We called them dogs, armament dogs, and that was lovingly. But they would use a gunner's quadrant and then a tape measure on every airframe. So they would they'd set the rocket pods and then they'd set the mini guns. Very it's very small movements.

But again we have to we have to provide surgical precise.

Shooting for the ground force.

So they'd set the rocket pods and then they'd set.

The mini guns and and but yes, they had a standard for you know, where the bullets would impact out at you know, x meters on every airframe. And for me, you talk, I counted, so it was twenty one rivets and then it was over the inside of my left pedal.

That's for.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that's that's cool stuff, man. You know, getting into an aircraft like that, Like I said, you know again coming from a Cobra and apache that rawness of that aircraft, it had to be I mean how long does it take you to get used to that? You know, to use to flying that? You know, how long are you in training before you even get to do a real mission?

Oh gosh, Well for the one sixtieth it's broken down. So when you when you finish Green Platoon, which is our training platoon, and depending on the airframe that you go into M six AH six black auction. So the AH six track or the length of the training is the longest because we have to go shoot and we have to learn how to shoot to the to that ground force standard and it just takes us longer. So the lift guys, and it's and we navigate, we you know, we don't use any electronics and the standard still stands today.

You have a map with your route on it.

So you have to be an expert at reading terrain and the route and air speeds.

And where's your wind coming from? Is its headwind? Is a tailwind? Is a cross wind? Where is it? You know? Is it blowing me left? Is it blown me right?

I need to slow up because our standard at the target is for us to arrive plus or minus thirty seconds, and you have to maintain that standard. And it's a map a clock and a compass and that's how you get to the target.

It's crazy with all the gpses it is and everything when people are using nowadays.

Like.

Yep, now we'll have that, but as as expert navigators, we will use that to back up our expert in navigation for sure.

Well, I mean we had we had started getting the same thing in the Marine Corps and the military in general. The jay tax started getting these tablets, you know, to have all the map data and everything, and the pilots did as well obviously, and it almost became an issue with new guys. You're like, no, bro, you can't use the tablet like you have to be on map and you know you got to bust out the old protractor and do the math and do everything, because what if the tablet runs out of battery? What if you crack it?

What if a million.

Use mills for sure?

And that all that old school stuff.

It's uh, you.

Know that goes back to shooting. You know, I learned going through the Snopper course. You know, we had a pencil and we use mill dots and the other wasn't any of these all this stuff they have nowadays. Man, you stick the thing up there and it gives you the win and that calculates your ballistics. And yeah, that had though, because batteries die and shit gets broken.

Yep.

Uh, that was the same kind of thing when I was a Ford observer. You know, we wouldn't let guys use the laser range finder until they got down to the standard. And the standard was target location within within two hundred meters and two minutes or less. And it's like, you have two minutes too. You have to be within two hundred meters or less and we're shooting artillery, you know.

Go and when you can meet that consistently, then we'll talk about Okay, now you can use the laser rangefinder to speed up the process. But you but if you don't know how to plot on a map and do a direction and do corrections off that, then you're useless, you know, because like, if something happens to your technology, you're useless. You're just a now you're just a strap.

Hanger, you're yeah.

Yeah, So for those that are watching my camera change, because my I don't know what happened. The other one just kind of canceled on me. So anyways, well, yeah, I went from my actual like HD camera to my MacBook camera, so now I'm actually looking out O laptop. Yeah, that's weird. So you get to the unit, you get all this training, you're doing all these things, you're out shooting, you're you know, you're becoming the best pilot that the Army can create. And then nine to eleven happens, right, And this is when what Chris Moyer and I were talking about in our episode was the those first mission into Afghanistan, the longest air raid in the you know, healo raid in the history in rural history. I think, actually, yes,

it was. So you got pulled out of the cockpit for that though, you know, what was your feeling at the time.

Yeah, I was not a happy man.

I was not, but I was honored that, you know, the Ground Force Delta, the Delta Commander, our command, you know, had their full faith and confidence and my abilities to be the fire support officer for task Force. And that's who we were when we first in O one we went into Afghanistan and uh but I I and I made the commander promise me General Daily two star. At the time, I said, all right, sir, I said, I'm going to do this. But I'm also an Ah guy and I want to I want to get in the fight, and he was like, I know.

Clip 043 | Flying the AH-6 Little Bird | Greg Coker | 160th SOAR

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