Basic Combat Skills

Basic Combat Skills (BCS) was arguably my favorite period in flight school. I'd just finished Advanced Instruments and gone through a rest period where I had two classroom classes over a two week period and no other flight school assignments. This was fortunate as my wife's Mustang had spun a bearing and I used that time off to overhaul her engine. (That car and same engine are sitting in the garage behind me 39 years later?) Regardless, I was ready to fly again and have some fun.

The main learning task of BCS is land navigation, at a low altitude at 90 knots. Southern Alabama looks entirely different less than 100 ft. above the trees and figuring out your 90 knot finger as you follow along on the map is a learned skill. There are few landmarks that you can readily identify at a glance in the training area. The Northwest corridor from Lowe Army Heliport ended at a distinctive hill called Ringtop. It was so named because the contour elevation lines on the map were concentric rings. It was also just about the only natural landmark you could see at a distance. Most other landmarks were water towers, radio towers and power lines. All of which you generally wanted to avoid.

BCS was also a change in how we were taught. We were three students per instructor instead of the two we'd had previously and our instructors were now active duty Army instructor pilots, not Flight Safety civilian instructors. My Stick buddies had both come from Air Force enlisted ranks to be Army pilots. Their names were Tyrone Winkler and Tim Sahagan. Our instructor was Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CW2) Mike McCurdy. Mike had most recently been assigned to I Corps in Korea where he was the pilot for the commanding general. Mike was a very personable fellow and could be quiet amusing. He had a very laid back style and treated us all like fellow pilots and most like someone he was testing. It was very refreshing. He made the training fun, not easy mind you but fun.

The typical training flight was 4 hours, and we all got roughly 80 minutes flying, 80 minutes navigating and 80 minutes as a passenger. When flying, like always we were in the right pilot's seat (Generally designated the co-pilot's seat) because that side had better instrumentation configuration than the left seat. Outside of a training environment, the Pilot in Command generally chose the left seat and the co-pilot who actually did most the flying sat in the right. When you were navigating, you sat in the crew chief seat, directly behind the center console and between the two pilot seats. As a passenger, you got to side in the door well on either the left or the right side, depending on where the auxiliary fuel cell was placed. UH-1D/H series aircraft had options for two extra fuel cells in the door wells on the left and right sides. Our aircraft were only equipped with 1 and the passenger sat on the opposite side to help improve the off center weight and balance of the aircraft.

Each student had been taught how to make a map book of the training area, that folded neatly and allowed you to move from one map sheet to the next adjacent map just by turning the page. We also had to check daily for updates to the master hazards map in operations before every flight to ensure we knew where all the hazards were in the training area. The training area we flew in was 95% public land, so the Army had no control about what was done and new hazards to navigation were always appearing. I can attest that a 500 ft. tall radio tower can appear overnight. Makes for a bad experience when you fly into one.

We were tasked with learning how to fly at high speed and low level from one point to another using the terrain as cover and concealment to try and hide our presence. Navigation was often from one open field in the woods to another open field 50 miles away. These remote training areas were also marked on your map and had 2 circles drawn around them 1 kilometer and 3 kilometers in diameter. Each landing area had a code name and a FM radio frequency assigned to it. When approaching, you made a radio call to everyone (a call in the blind) announcing what you were doing in the area, You could be landing heading 180 degrees. You could be taking off heading 090. You could also be passing the LZ and you wold state passing north of it for example east to west. If you heard a call when you were in one of these areas, you would respond with your location and if you had a Tally Ho (you could see) the other aircraft. The training area was over 100 square miles, but with a density of 60 to 90 aircraft zipping around hugging the valley contours you had to be careful. Mid-air collisions are not pretty.

In landing areas, we practiced all kinds of hover work. Making forward observer observations where you would hover up behind a tree line, then pop up above the trees for 1 to 3 seconds then drop back down to your 3-foot hover and move away before something unfriendly arrived at that location like a theoretical mortar shell. Then you'd talk about what you saw, and discussed how to better do the maneuver (two pilots, you divide the area into sections, each scans their section, this way you get a better observation of the area. The rest of the training was either flying at low level from one place to another or being the navigator for such flights. If you were the passenger, you just tried to remember when your buddies goofed.

My most memorable day in BCS started with Tim, riding as passenger, Tyrone navigating and I was playing pilot. Mr. McCurdy was in a playful mood and we took off from Lowe and headed out toward Ringtop to enter the training area (On the map it is shown as the Rose Hill Military Operations Area [MOA]). We headed to the south simpler by Mr. McCurdy telling Tyrone lets go to thes LZ (I can't remember the name) but it was in the southeast part of the training area. I mentioned water towers earlier and here is why they were important. If you flew near a water tower, you were near a town. Flying over towns in southern Alabama is considered rude by the populace and gets many annoyed callers complaining to the Fort. So flying over populated areas in so say the least frowned upon. The basic rule is, if you see a water tower, turn away.

Tyrone is a great guy, and he was a pretty fair pilot, but he sucked at land navigation. Now the terrain in that area isn't too helpful, as the main landmarks are subtle. The pea river flows south through the area to the gulf. But the river is very flat and wide and has few distinctive features. To make things worse, Indian Creek is a tributary that flows into the the Pea River and is nearly as wide and is almost due south, (it is 200 degrees, Pea River is 180 degrees) so it isn't too hard to momentarily mistake one for the other, until you look around a bit. Apparently in the Air Force, land navigation isn't a oft used skill, in the Army this is a different story. My worst score on any land navigation course I've ever tested on was 100%. Land navigation and map reading are may best skills. And I can generally remember what the map says after I've related it to the ground I'm navigating. It is hard to get me lost.

Mike (The instructor you remember) has already figured out that I'm good with a map and a decent pilot at a minimum. We've been at this for more than a few days and our check rides will be coming up soon. Today he is much more interested in teaching Tyrone to read maps and he doesn't seem real concerned with what maneuvers I'm doing in route to whatever field he's told Tyrone to find. So we're zipping around the southern edge of the MOA and he send Tyrone heading north to RT210 or such. Creeks and rivers are the low areas, so in low level flight, these are our highways in the sky, just very low highways. Tyrone has me flying up the Pea River and I can already tell he is lost and confused as he isn't really giving me any navigation guidance. I tell him I'm flying 020, (just slightly right of due north) and he replies "Continue". Since I'm on the right side of the river, and Indian Creek branched off to the right, and the Pea River is the left side heading 355 (just slightly left of due north)  I know Tyrone has to tell me to turn if we are going to head toward our destination and avoid other things. I mention there is a split in the river and I need to go left or right and he says "Go right stay 020". I look over at Mr. McCurdy with a plaintive look an he just gives the barest shake of his head letting me know I am to follow my navigator and keep my mouth shut.

So here we go, heading up Indian Creek and Tyrone is clueless. As a general practice, the pilot mentions landmarks as they are approached so I start picking out ones I KNOW are not on the Pea River hoping to give Tyrone a clue, but it is hopeless. I mention a dam and lake on the left. I mention another landmark over to the right, and finally I mention a water tower at 12 o'clock. Again I look over at Mike, and again the barest shake of his head "No" and Tyrone says "Continue". About 30 seconds later, I'm blasting over Andalusia Alabama at about 100 Ft. above the ground. Mr. McCurdy signals me to climb and has me make a right turn and head back down Indian Creek. As we go down, the creek, Mike has me point out thinks Tyrone should have seen and I explain where we are on the map as we get back to the Pea River and I make a lazy right turn and head of the river.

We fly in to refuel and do the student change, Tyrone Flying, Tim navigating and I'm not a passenger along for the ride. This portion was fairly typical and started with low-level cross country, a pass through the nap of the earth course, (low and slow skids almost in the trees kind of stuff and then hover work, concealment and spot observations practice. Then we landed in the LZ and rotated positions again. Tim flying, Tyrone in the right side bay passenger and I was the navigator.

Normal housekeeping when you were the Navigator was to place you map book between one of the pilot seats and the center console that contained all the avionics (Communication radios, navigation aids and intercom equipment). Since we were already in the LZ, we started with the hover work and excepts for spot observations practice where everyone participated, I was pretty much a passenger while Tim was getting his training from Mr. McCurdy. finally it was time to return to base and Mr. McCurdy told me to take us home. I reached forward for my map book and Mike said "What are you doing? You are Sky King the Navigator, you don't need a damn map!" looking at me over his right shoulder with a big grin. Never being one to back away from a map reading challenge, I put the map back and told Tim "Fly heading 120".

Now this wasn't a really difficult route back, it was more or less a fairly straight shot southeast to Ringtop where we would enter the northwest corridor back into Lowe. The challenge to me was could I warn Tim of all the obstacles ahead of him, remember what training LZs were ahead and the FM radio frequencies he had to monitor while passing the locations. The 1st challenge was a set of electric high power transmission lines just after the crest of a hill we were flying up. I told him the wires were just past the crest and to go over the wires at the tower (When crossing wires, you always go over a tower/pole as that assures you of crossing it at the highest point ensuring you don't hit a wire). We passed three designated landing areas and about 5 Km out from each I gave Tim the LZ name and frequency and how we were passing it "Approaching LZ Delta, 70.15, passing to the east of the LZ north to south" was a typical example.

This was a uncharacteristically quite flight back to the airfield with only the sounds of the helicopter and the radios. Usually Mr. McCurdy was pointing out one thing or another or providing feedback on how the student was flying. But it was the end of the day, we were heading to the barn and Tim was a good stick and needed little direction on how to maneuver a UH-1H. After passing the last LZ and 2 or 3 minutes short of Ringtop, Tyrone keys his microphone and starts a conversations:

Tyrone: "Don, you make me sick."
Me: "Why?"
Tyrone: "There you sit, giving Tim perfect directions. You know where every LZ is, you know all the frequencies and you are doing it from memory. I can't doing ti and I'm using my map!"

What could I say? So I told Tim to switch to the northwest corridor frequency and make a call that he was approaching Ringtop from the northwest. and thus ends the tale of my being christened "Sky King" by my instructor.