Know Your Winds

By NAME WITHHELD BY REQUESTMay 9, 2011

"Where are the winds from'" Every aviator, from the "newbie" (RL3 guy) to the senior wings pilot, has asked this question. Knowing your winds is a fundamental part of flying, particularly in Afghanistan, where the need for helicopter support has increased in recent years.

The mountainous terrain in Afghanistan is challenging, causing turbulence, down drafts and wind patterns that are often hard to predict. Army aviators must be confident in their ability to conduct aviation operations at high altitude, where aircraft performance and power available can be severely limited. Actually, understanding the concepts and applying them to day-to-day missions is the challenge that can often determine whether you crash or stay in the air.

To meet the high demand for aviation assets to support the ground commanders, the Army has incorporated high-altitude training at the U.S. Army Aviation National Guard High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site and the High-Altitude Mountainous Environmental Training Strategy. Both training centers are located in Colorado.

During the relief-in-place process and progression flights in Operation Enduring Freedom, aviation task forces put a heavy emphasis on high-altitude training. Every aviator was required to conduct approaches during day and night vision goggle conditions, incorporating wind direction identifiers, wind circles, power management, maintaining an "out" and other fundamentals. Fortunately for us, our standardization pilots and instructor pilots (IP) taught us very well, choosing challenging terrain and conditions to demonstrate these principles. I personally found this training beneficial, as I was one of the low-time aviators in our task force. Our IPs and senior pilots-in-command continually discussed the fundamentals in daily flights and practiced them after executing the mission. Most everyone was humble enough to listen.

These concepts habitually paid off for us, allowing us to complete our missions; however, one instance particularly stands out. While conducting area security for a dismounted patrol, the ground forces identified a possible point-of-origin site from a previous engagement. The site was about 1.5 kilometers inside of a tight valley that generally led uphill.

Our OH-58 crew first started with a high recon of the area to develop the situation and identify where we needed to look. Even in the excitement of finding bad guys, we also noticed indications of where the wind was blowing within the valley. Varying our flight patterns, we continued to get closer, down to about 50 feet, eventually identifying a possible insurgent at the site. We maintained contact and the ground forces eventually detained the individual.

Throughout our reconnaissance, we continued to talk and crosscheck in the cockpit about our airspeed, altitude and possible "outs" while maneuvering in the tight valley. The training and practical applications we learned early on helped us complete our mission, safely maneuver the aircraft and, ultimately, support ground efforts.

In another instance later in the deployment, we weren't quite as lucky. Conducting area reconnaissance in another wide valley, we spotted several armed males along a known insurgent trafficking route. To maintain contact rapidly, I conducted a sharp, stalling turn to the left. What I didn't take into consideration was my current altitude, airspeed and wind direction. I turned, with little airspeed, into a tailwind. Suddenly, maintaining contact quickly became my second priority as I tried to arrest our rapid descent with the cyclic and forward airspeed and, eventually, with power from the collective. Luckily, I was able to get out of the settling condition with only my pride hurt, although we only missed a transmission overtorque by 1 percent. In addition, we lost contact with the armed males, who quickly hid in mountainside caves and huts. My complacency and overconfidence caused us to lose the targets and nearly damage the aircraft.

The bottom-line lessons I learned from these two experiences are to know your winds and continue to practice the fundamentals you've learned. Army aviators must understand the aerodynamics and atmospheric effects on their aircraft at high altitudes. It is your responsibility to learn, understand and apply these training concepts. The Department of the Army and senior Leaders and aviators will be there to teach and quiz your knowledge, but the responsibility ultimately falls on you.

The worldwide high demand for rotary support in conflicts like Afghanistan means that aviation has a higher responsibility to support the ground forces. Knowing the winds could ultimately determine mission failure or accomplishment - whether you end up crashing or flying away.