Ed Macy - Hellfire

In the meantime, the ticker – tape at the top of the monocle gave me my heading – something I could control with the pedals. Pushing down on the right pedal while allowing the left one out would spin me left, and vice versa. A scale running up the right-hand side of the monocle would let me know my rate of climb or descent and my height above the ground.

Today was my first practice, but uppermost in my mind was the bag test we’d have to take in a few weeks’ time and the rules were the rules. If we drifted from the takeoff point, I’d fail. If I went above or below ten feet, I’d fail. If my heading changed, I’d fail. I had to go straight up, keep the Apache there and activate the position and height holds.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said to no one in particular, ‘how am I supposed to do all this on one eye?’

‘I guarantee you, as soon as you take off, the aircraft will go forwards or backwards, right or left and you’ll instantly adjust the stick in the other direction,’ Scottie said. ‘At this point you’ll drift the other way. Don’t worry about it – it’s natural. You won’t be able to keep it at ten feet and you won’t be able to keep it pointing in the same direction either. Prepare for sensory overload, Ed. You’ll drift all over the place. But when it comes to the test you’ll be able to do this – you’ll go straight up, hit ten feet and hover and you won’t move a millimetre. Remember, it’s not scary for me; only for you. I can see out. So, relax, don’t overcontrol, and try to take in as much as you can. Are you ready?’

As ready as I’d ever be, I told him.

‘Okay, do not fly by your senses, use your symbology. Here goes. Maintaining three six zero degrees and the same position over the ground, I want you to climb to ten feet and put the holds in.’

I raised the collective lever, applying power, and we began to lift clear of the ground. My right eye flicked between the circle at the centre of the monocle, the ticker-tape above it and my height on the right. I could see nothing else. It was like sitting on a hill in a car with a blindfold on and releasing the handbrake and not knowing what the fuck was coming at you…

All three wheels left the ground and the line started to grow out from the centre, towards the right-hand edge of the monocle. I tilted the cyclic as gently as I could in the opposite direction. Too much. Fuck. The line shot out of the other side of the circle. So I overcompensated again. Then I realised my heading was off. I tried to correct with the pedals.

I was stick-stirring and the aircraft felt like it was going all over the place.

Between fits of laughter Scottie told me to put the holds in. I flicked the button on the cyclic in opposite directions engaging position and height hold as quickly as I could and the aircraft became rock steady.

‘Okay, Ed. Other than being at forty feet and facing north-east, where do you think we are?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ I felt drained. I’d probably only been airborne twenty seconds, but it felt like a lifetime.

‘How far do you think we are from the concrete?’

‘I don’t know. Somewhere near the top right-hand corner, maybe?’

‘Is that all?’

My heart sank. It was worse than I thought. ‘Okay then, somewhere just off the top right-hand corner?’

‘How many feet from it?’

I was getting bored with this game – and faintly irritated by it. What did Scottie want me to say? I’m a shit pilot? I’m not cut out for the Apache? ‘I don’t know Scottie – fifty feet, maybe. More…?’

‘Okay, Ed, switch on your Pinvis.’

I did as I was told and the outside world suddenly flickered into life in my right eye.

Jesus. I’d hardly moved. I had hardly moved .

‘We may not have moved,’ Scottie said. ‘But what were you doing wrong?’

‘Flying on instinct,’ I told him. Exactly what he’d told me not to do. When you flew by the seat of your pants, using all of your senses, you ended up all over the fucking shop.

‘When the velocity vector moves to the edge of your monocle, Ed, it means you’re only moving at six knots – that’s all.’ He paused. ‘Now I want you to use your bob-up box.’

The bob-up box, another piece of symbology, would give me unbelievable situational awareness in my black void. It always stayed in exactly the same place in relation to the real world. It represented my initial position over the ground and would move accordingly; it gave me a point of reference – something I’d not had during my first foray into oblivion.

He told me to switch off the PNVS and try it again.

This time when I took off and the line drifted out from the centre I could see that the bob-up box had hardly shifted at all. Moving the bob-up box to the edge of the monocle represented a real-world shift of only six feet.

‘The lesson of the bag, Ed, is trust your symbology, not your instincts. If you end up with no vision, in the shit, with nothing else to rely on except what’s in your monocle, it’s symbology that will save your life – not your skills as a three-thousand-hour seasoned seat-of-the-pants aviator.’

I heard what Scottie said, but could not envisage any situation a helicopter pilot might encounter that would emulate the conditions I’d just experienced in the bag: total blackout with no picture at all.

On that score, however, I would be proved utterly wrong.

Seven months down the line, with my bag test flight behind me, I was back at Dishforth. Sixteen out of the twenty of us earmarked for 656 Squadron who’d gone to Middle Wallop were in the briefing room; 9 Regiment had its first Apache Squadron.

It had been a long, hard road. Wives, girlfriends, children and friends were all happy to welcome us back. The army had expected everyone to pass CTT1 – it was just a conversion course, after all – but the Apache had proved a very difficult beast to master. The lads that failed each had over 2,000 military flying hours – and worse still, we’d lost our QHI.

The rest of us knew all too well that all we had done was learn how to keep the thing airborne and make sure it was pointing in the right direction when it fired its weapons. We were now about to embark on an even more punishing course: CTR – Conversion to Role.

We’d be spending many more weeks away training. Even in barracks the average day lasted fourteen hours. To work a long day was one thing; to be in an aircraft or simulator as complex as the Apache was quite another.

During one night sortie, my front-seater and I were working so hard we became target-fixated. The red mist came down because the target vehicle, a recce car, was moving so unpredictably. Pat was doing everything he could to get a steady crosshair on it, but it was proving incredibly tough. Our cannon rounds always landed just in front of the vehicle. Just as we fired, the bloody thing changed direction. By the time the rounds had flown to the predicted position the vehicle wasn’t there.

Eventually, we closed to within a thousand metres. Then we heard a huge bang and the seat punched up into the small of my back.

The aircraft lurched dangerously and plunged nose-down. The world was spinning at such a rate I couldn’t make sense of the swirling green; attempting to pull out was proving more difficult than I’d anticipated. The nose started to come up but the Gs were getting worse; the Apache began to spin within its own circumference. I’d lost tail rotor authority; I was out of control. There was only one outcome to this and I prayed we would survive it.

As the Apache passed through 500 feet, the low height warner started beeping loudly and the lamps in front of me glowed bright. The airframe was vibrating so badly I couldn’t focus.

Then the monocle went black.