Ed Macy - Apache

‘You got him, sir.’

‘I hear the left wing, Si. Let’s rock and roll.’

Luckily, everyone didn’t always speak at once – though they could. A volume control allowed me to turn up the net most relevant to me at any particular moment.

‘Pylons, stabilator, Auxiliary Power Unit; clear, Si?’

‘Pylons, stab and APU all clear. Clear to start, sir.’

I pressed the APU button below the ignition switch. A loud whine as the APU engine turned over, then the distinctive ticking of the igniters. The APU burst into life followed by a rush of air from the four gaspers positioned around the cockpit. The air was hot; no air con yet.

I grabbed the cyclic stick and yelped. I’d taken my gloves off to pull on my helmet and forgotten the stick had been sunbathing all morning. A quick glance confirmed the beginnings of a pale white blister between my thumb and forefinger. Shit ; I’d have to fly the whole sortie with pressure against it.

My rage made me think of my daughter; she’d be laughing her head off if she saw me now. My daughter thought it was hilarious when I hurt myself because I was normally such a hard bugger. Me in pain, face contorted, fighting the urge to curse, made her sides split. That’s daughters for you.

It was an even numbered day today.

‘Starting number two, Si?’

We always matched the engine starting sequence to odd and even days. It meant one never worked harder than the other in the long run.

‘Clear to start number two, sir.’

The heat in the cockpit was close to unbearable. All the hot wiring, glues, resins, metals and rubber cosseted inside my glass cocoon exuded their own distinctive scent. I was still sweating like a pig.

I pushed the right hand Engine Power Lever forward to ‘Idle’ and the starboard engine fired up. Then a slow, smooth push on the EPL, fully forward. As the engine pitch grew the tail rotor started up thirty-five feet behind me and the four main rotor blades begun to move above my head, slowly at first, and then ever faster, thudding rhythmically as the blades started to catch the air.

My eyes began to sting as the first droplets of sweat trickled into them from my brow. I wished the air con would hurry up.

‘Starting number one.’

‘Clear to start number one, sir.’

Ten seconds later the thuds were too quick to count and the rotors began a deafening hum.

Twenty-two minutes to takeoff.

I attached my monocle and bore-sighted my helmet. It allowed me to snap shoot at any target on the ground simply by looking at it and pulling the trigger. Tiny infrared sensors positioned around the cockpit detected the exact position of the crosshairs at the centre of my monocle and the computer directed the cannon accordingly. The Apache didn’t even need to be facing the target. It was a neat trick.

The sweat finally began to cool on my brow as the air con won its battle with the sun’s rays. I started testing the systems.

Fifteen minutes to takeoff.

My hands and eyes swept around the cockpit. The Boss and I kept up a constant dialogue as we worked. Our rotor blades thundered menacingly above the eight man arming team. Three… two… one… ten minutes to lift.

‘Ugly Five One on one.’ I flicked to the second radio. ‘On two.’ Flicked to the third. ‘On three.’ Flicked to the last, our data radio, and sent our digital position.

Billy replied, ‘Ugly Five Zero on one… on two… on three.’ An icon appeared on the MPD showing the position of his Apache.

‘Good Data. Ready.’ All four radios and data were working.

Billy replied with a ‘click-click’ over the radio, shorthand for affirmative.

Pushing the APU button again switched it off. ‘APU off; pins, cords and chocks please, Simon.’

His team prepared the aircraft for moving and I opened my door to receive the arming pin. The flares and weapons were now armed and we were ready to go.

‘Have a good trip, sirs.’ Simon disconnected from the right wing and his team moved to the missile and rocket racks. For the first time since we’d arrived, we owned the Apache.

‘Your lead, Billy.’

Another double click.

Two minutes and thirty seconds to takeoff.

My left hand moved down the collective to the flying grip. Looking straight ahead as my right eye focused on the flight symbology projected into the monocle, I gave the flying grip a single twist to the right, removing the collective’s friction lock. The torque – the measurement of engine power output in helicopter flight – indicated 21 per cent. That was the norm while stationary on the ground, rotor blades flat – the minimum angle of pitch.

My feet pressed on the very top of both directional foot pedals at the same time until I heard a light thud.

‘Parking brake off? Tail wheel locked?’

The final two questions on the Boss’s checklist. I did my visual check. ‘The parking brake is off, the handle is in, tail wheel is locked and the light is out.’

My right eye focused on the torque and my left watched Billy and Carl’s aircraft pull out of the loading bay beside us and taxi away. My left hand was poised to pull up the collective, my right wrapped firmly around the cyclic, ready to push forward.

Thirty seconds to takeoff.

With fifty metres between us and Billy, I lifted the collective and depressed my left pedal to increase power to the tail rotor and balance us up against the increased force of the turning rotor blades. Left unchecked, the main blades would try to turn our nose to the right, leaning the Apache dangerously over to one side. The torque climbed to 35 per cent.

With a gentle push of the cyclic control stick away from my body the main blades tipped and pulled the machine slowly forward. A touch on the toe brakes at the top of the pedals to test the brakes then we taxied onto our miniature runway for a running takeoff.

Heat and altitude both reduced the amount of power a helicopter engine could generate. Camp Bastion was long on both. We could lift vertically, but it was a major struggle if we carried a full load of ammunition and fuel. Taking a run at it gave us translational lift, the kind fixed-wing aircraft used.

Fifteen seconds to takeoff.

I pointed our nose straight down the runway, with Billy and Carl still fifty metres ahead of us, and pulled a little more pitch. The machine picked up pace nicely. Once the torque hit 65 per cent, I pushed the trim button to hold the collective and cyclic in place. It was sufficient power to get us up. The speed symbol in my right eye hit twenty knots and continued to climb.

Six seconds to takeoff.

Eighty metres down the runway, the tail wheel lifted off it. At thirty-five knots she wanted to fly, but I held her down with a tiny reduction of power and a shift of the cyclic. It wasn’t time yet.

Two seconds to takeoff.

I was watching Carl’s disc intently… Now… It tipped forward and I raised the collective again and the main wheels left the ground. We lifted in perfect unison. Good. I was pleased I’d got it spot on. If you set the right tone at the start of a mission you’d remain accurate throughout.

‘Your ASE, Boss.’

The Boss armed the aircraft’s Aircraft Survival Equipment (ASE) to protect us against SAMs.

‘Okay, countermeasures set; ASE is on semi-automatic.’

‘Zero Charlie this is Ugly Five Zero and Ugly Five One. Wheels off at your location as fragged, over.’

‘Zero Charlie, Roger. Out.’

I pulled up the navigation page on the left hand MPD and selected the pre-planned route heading for Sangin, the first stop on our tour. A glance through the monocle confirmed: ‘Eighteen minutes to arrival.’

We were seventy-five feet above the desert floor and heading north-east, the camp’s perimeter fence two hundred metres behind us. A quick trim with the right thumb and we accelerated to a cruising speed of 120 knots. The Boss selected automatic on the ASE. The Apache would, we hoped, keep us safe from surface-to-air missiles. SAMs were the greatest threat to us at the heights we operated.