If ASW seems slow and boring for the helicopter part of anti-submarining, you’re probably doing it poorly.
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Making Decision for BDCP Application
- Thread starter Töadlove
- Start date
@Gatordev and @IKE, despite being old and crusty (just kidding
), have already nailed it. HSM has plenty of NFO-esque nerdery available in the front seats. The 60R is basically a giant flying sensor with tons of equipment on board, and even more coming in the future.Based on your desire to be a sensor operator, I could see you really enjoying ASW. Without getting too technical, the ATO during an ASW event stays very engaged with analyzing buoys, tracking, telling the other pilot where to go next in order to keep up with the sub, determining where you need to drop the torpedo, etc. It’s the kind of event where you blink your eyes and 2 hours has already gone by because you’re so deep into the problem.
Even outside of ASW, as mentioned previously, there’s plenty of uses for radar/ESM/FLIR. In fact, that’s probably what I did the most on deployment. Fly up high and start identifying as much stuff as you can in front of the boat in case there’s any bad guys. This will also keep you busy. Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of freaking boats in the South China Sea.
Long story short, unless there’s other reasons you don’t want to fly helicopters, don’t write them off just because they don’t have NFOs. There are a ton of ways to get involved in operating the sensors from the front seat. As someone who flies the 60R, I love flying with people like you. I’m not as much into the sensors as others, so I prefer to do more of the stick flying. But like someone mentioned before, you can swap controls freely and dabble as you please.
If you end up flying helos and still maintain your currently level of nerdery, consider going to the Weapons School or NAWDC. Lots of smart people there who come up with new tactics, ways to use the sensors, and teach the rest of the fleet how to get good at doing it.