RIMPAC 2014

[Lawman]

Guess who's coming to dinner....

We're due to show up about a week before Harbor Phase. First Apaches in Hawaii.... Ever. Should be a learning experience for everybody as to just how many things we don't know trying to operate aboard ship (I'm currently trying to beat Natops in our Stan's guys heads).

Anybody else gonna be out there to look out for?

 

[Sheepdip]

I'll be the guy drunk on the golf course

 

[kmac]

COD support will be there. It should be a good time.

 

[kmac]

First Apaches in Hawaii.... Ever. Should be a learning experience for everybody as to just how many things we don't know trying to operate aboard ship (I'm currently trying to beat Natops in our Stan's guys heads).

How are you guys getting there?

 

[Renegade One]

Guess who's coming to dinner....

Fascinating. Just out of curiosity, what's the DLQ cert process for Army RW? Will you/they be operating from big-deck AMPHIBS (I assume)? Still pretty cool...

 

[Pags]

Fascinating. Just out of curiosity, what's the DLQ cert process for Army RW? Will you/they be operating from big-deck AMPHIBS (I assume)? Still pretty cool...

Pretty ho-hum from the boat side. Brief the aviators on the boat in port to point out the glaring holes in LHD NATOPS and then off to the boat you go. Take it slow and only a few aircraft in the pattern at a time with a couple of spots worth of separation. Even for USN a/c who were unfamiliar with the finer points of the gator we'd have the Gator SAR bird fly the pattern with them to demo.

 

[Lawman]

Fascinating. Just out of curiosity, what's the DLQ cert process for Army RW? Will you/they be operating from big-deck AMPHIBS (I assume)? Still pretty cool...

Supposed to be landing specifically on the Peleliu.

The Army has DAC instructors who TDY to units to do the initial classes on how not to fuck it up. The big thing is we are the one unit in the brigade that don't have the experience with boats being located away from the brigade in Colorado.

Gatordev was nice enough to pass me Natops manuals on LHA ops and hand signals. Big problems are going to be:

1. Mechanically we are not boat friendly. Our blades don't fold without a kit and a bunch of man power over a period of hours. Plus the wings and tail are stuck the way they are. So I'm a 59 foot long 48 foot wide hole on the deck space.

2. Culturally we (attack aviation) say "fuck it do it my way" a lot of the time. I'm already seeing this out of some of our guys who just assume we can show up and a boat whose operations don't revolve around us will adjust to fit our needs.

We are looking forward to "attacking" a destroyer though. You guys are going to murder us and I'm trying to explain that to people but they don't understand radar horizons and think we can sneak in on the deck even after I show them how a nomagraph works.

 

[Gatordev]

We are looking forward to "attacking" a destroyer though. You guys are going to murder us and I'm trying to explain that to people but they don't understand radar horizons and think we can sneak in on the deck even after I show them how a nomagraph works.

There are a couple of creative ways to do it, but the ROE may not allow it because you wouldn't be "playing fair." I knew we ran into that during a UNITAS we did. OPFOR's capital ship was a U.S. Cruiser and we knew how to get close enough, but the ROE wouldn't let us take a shot during that time.

 

[Hotdogs]

We are looking forward to "attacking" a destroyer though. You guys are going to murder us and I'm trying to explain that to people but they don't understand radar horizons and think we can sneak in on the deck even after I show them how a nomagraph works.

Just don't pull into a hover hold inside the DDG CWIS WEZ Karbala Style.

I heard some rumor about apache wheel spacing not being friendly to Ship Ops in rolling seas, any truth to that or purely conjecture/BS? I know the Brits operated off of amphibs circa Libya time frame but never heard anything about it.

 

[Lawman]

I can only tell you the -10 limits. We are allowed up to 10 degrees in roll and +7/-12 pitch but all hat is for weights under 17500. Heavier than that (which a fully fueled and armed bird would be) it's all a mystery.

I'm also concerned about the droop stops since we aren't permitted to start the rotor in 45 knot winds. How often do you guys see wind speeds like that across the deck?

 

[Pags]

I can only tell you the -10 limits. We are allowed up to 10 degrees in roll and +7/-12 pitch but all hat is for weights under 17500. Heavier than that (which a fully fueled and armed bird would be) it's all a mystery.

I'm also concerned about the droop stops since we aren't permitted to start the rotor in 45 knot winds. How often do you guys see wind speeds like that across the deck?

Many shipboard helos also have a 45kt wind limit for startup and that's the wind speed where a lot of ships will start shutting down the deck as it's rough on the deck crew. The wind limits for take off and landing are often more restrictive than 45kt and will almost certainly be much smaller for the apache. Nice thing with the boat is that you can always maneuver the "airfield" to get the winds.

 

[CommodoreMid]

I'm going as VP LNO, not sure which boat I'm going to be on yet. I'll be the aviator who is more confused by SWO behavior than the other aviators.

 

[bert]

Many shipboard helos also have a 45kt wind limit for startup and that's the wind speed where a lot of ships will start shutting down the deck as it's rough on the deck crew. The wind limits for take off and landing are often more restrictive than 45kt and will almost certainly be much smaller for the apache. Nice thing with the boat is that you can always maneuver the "airfield" 2 or 3 times to get the winds.

FTFY.

 

[nittany03]

Many shipboard helos also have a 45kt wind limit for startup and that's the wind speed where a lot of ships will start shutting down the deck as it's rough on the deck crew. The wind limits for take off and landing are often more restrictive than 45kt and will almost certainly be much smaller for the apache. Nice thing with the boat is that you can always maneuver the "airfield" directly into a squall to get the winds.

FTFY.

 

[Pags]

FTFY.

Technique, not procedure.