Canada converts Sea Kings for battlefield role with SCTF

[aesop081]

Aesop's console

CH-124B, as was explained to me did not employ AESOps.  The employed 2 navigators ( TACCO and SENSO).  Some 081s were fortunate enough to take the course and be breifly employed in that role but it was very limited.

 

[Zoomie]

As I said before, I'd fly it here in a troop transport role...

Sorry Duey - I bet there are plenty of SK qualified drivers that are in line way ahead of you for any such tasking.  ;D

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Sorry Duey - I bet there are plenty of SK qualified drivers that are in line way ahead of you for any such tasking.

You'd be shocked at just how short of qualified, current pilots we are...

Door Gunner, ohhhh were do I sign.

Go see your BPSO- we are desperately short of AESOPs (ie- door gunners...)

If they make the cockpit NVG-compatible, I'll fly them over here!

Do not get me started on what a fiasco that turned out to be.  You'd think changing a bunch of cockpit lightbulbs would be simple, huh?  Not a chance...

 

[h3tacco]

AESOp081 when we used Bravo's for ASW you are correct it did have two NAVs (one tacco and one senso) however, the last senso course run was only for AESOPs. The Sea King community decided that passive acoustic were a sensor and thus fell under the domain of the AESOp trade. Unfortunately shortly after the last SENSO course (like within a year) the community ran into  a manpower crisis which precluded using the bravos anymore (ie lack of bravo taccos and sensos) and we haven't used the Bravo for ASW probably for the last two years. I wish the Aurora had given passive acoustic to the AESOp trade from the beginning vice to the nav trade.

 

[h3tacco]

Duey currently the SCTF helo still has the TACCO station but the AESOp station has been removed. If given more time and money to give the pilots a proper TACNAV/FMS the Tacco station would be gone as well. Hopefully the M134 will replace the C6 on the cyclone. And as SKT has said the NVG issue has kind of been a nightmare for the Sea King community. A little while ago it was supposed to be the #1 priority but it has run into some DT&E hurdles.

 

[Good2Golf]

Zoomie, I didn't dare go near the "Do you convert a TH pilot onto the SK, or do you train an SK guy to fly tactically low over the ground?"  An interesting question to be sure. 

SKT/H3...trust me, I know the NVG-compatability issue.  What should have been an absolute no-brainer for the Twin Huey was: replace all the red filters in the instruments for ANVIS-B compatible filters at the cost of ~$2.00 per filter.  Got it!  Great! ......uh....*play forboding music as the engineer creeps into the picture...*  "Wait, you must pay $2000 per instrument (I shite you not!) to break open the seal between maintenance intervals!"  OK, assuming someone would buy off on that, lets do some math, that would be about $78k per aircraft...pricey, but equal to about 15.5 hours of full-sunk cost flight time for a Twin.  "No, that's too expensive!" says the engineer, "We'll design our own system and implement it on the fleet...efficiency in quantity!"

...you can see where this is going... :

End cost to convert the CH135 cockpits to ANVIS-B compatibility (less the non-compliant fire handles ).........$115k+ per aircraft... :brickwall:

I'd take the same mod as I flew on our Chinooks in 1990...eight green glo-sticks and a helmet lip-light per pilot, total cost?  $12 + what, $5 per flight for the glo-sticks?

Yes, I'm too seasoned to think that the folks would do it the easy and "combat effective" way...they'll try to fly the thing during the day rather than spend the money to equip them for NVG.  Sadly, and I hope to hell this doesn't happen, but it will take somebody getting injured or worse for someone to come up with the great idea to fly with NVG at night... :  To think that many of us in tac hel have been flying NVG for 16-17 years...and that's decades after the US and UK flew with them...

*sigh*

Cheers,
Duey

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Zoomie, I didn't dare go near the "Do you convert a TH pilot onto the SK, or do you train an SK guy to fly tactically low over the ground?"  An interesting question to be sure. 

I think you should go near the question.  It is going to rear it's ugly head sooner, rather than later.  Too bad you can't get to the Helicopter warfare symposium in Shearwater at the end of March- alot of baggage that we as an Air Force have not dealt with effectively since 1967 is going to get thrown onto the table- in all it's smelly, messy glory.

I think that the distinction between MH and Tac Hel Sqn we currently understand are going to blur rather rapidly in the coming months.  Both sides have a lot to learn from the other.

 

[Good2Golf]

I think you should go near the question.  It is going to rear it's ugly head sooner, rather than later.  Too bad you can't get to the Helicopter warfare symposium in Shearwater at the end of March- alot of baggage that we as an Air Force have not dealt with effectively since 1967 is going to get thrown onto the table- in all it's smelly, messy glory.

I think that the distinction between MH and Tac Hel Sqn we currently understand are going to blur rather rapidly in the coming months.  Both sides have a lot to learn from the other.

SKT, short and sweet....

  TH pilot - mission commander / co-pilot
  MH pilot - aircraft commander. 


Hey, I may be at the symposium yet...I redeploy in 4 weeks...I have 37 days of leave to burn and I'm getting a waiver to attend the symp on TD.  If it's a go, I'll see you there buddy!  :cheers:

Cheers,
Duey

 

[aesop081]

AESOp081 when we used Bravo's for ASW you are correct it did have two NAVs (one tacco and one senso) however, the last senso course run was only for AESOPs. The Sea King community decided that passive acoustic were a sensor and thus fell under the domain of the AESOp trade. Unfortunately shortly after the last SENSO course (like within a year) the community ran into  a manpower crisis which precluded using the bravos anymore (ie lack of bravo taccos and sensos) and we haven't used the Bravo for ASW probably for the last two years.

Thanks.

I wish the Aurora had given passive acoustic to the AESOp trade from the beginning vice to the nav trade.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.........

NO THANKS

 

[SeaKingTacco]

SKT, short and sweet....

  TH pilot - mission commander / co-pilot
  MH pilot - aircraft commander. 

Possibly, but I don't even think that those labels are going to be useful in 6 months time.  The Sea King drivers need, in a very short amount of time, to learn Army vocabulary and how to fly tactically overland.  The Griffon drivers need to lean how to work with the Navy, land on ships, operate off of ships.  Some how, we still have to maintain a naval force capability (ie ASW so our nice big amphib ship does not get sunk 80 Nm from "Hostileland" by some crappy old submarine) and accept a new helicopter into service (along with all of the retraining and OT&E that goes along with that)- all at the same time.

I'm not sure 12 Wing is big enough to do this alone.  There may have to be pan-air force resources added to the mix.  The current line between helicopter sqn roles is going to blur a bunch in the next few years.

Seriously- try to get to Shearwater for 30-31 Mar.  We are likely to have the most serious discussion of helicopter doctrine that has ever been had by the CF.  I see a lot of broken rice bowls coming up...

 

[aesop081]

(ie ASW so our nice big amphib ship does not get sunk 80 Nm from "Hostileland" by some crappy old submarine)

SKT, i guess you didnt hear the speech from 14 Wing commander, "ASW is dead"  ;D

 

[SeaKingTacco]

SKT, i guess you didnt hear the speech from 14 Wing commander, "ASW is dead" 

He may think that.  What worries me is 70-80 other countries didn't get that memo...

 

[Good2Golf]

SKT, just to be clear, my TH msn comd, MH ac was for a short term solution to the SK's in AFG.  SCTF is a different thing.  I wouldn't count on the Griffon doing much on board ship except for a limited capability in certain scenarios.  Rumblings have the Griffon being a much smaller fleet in the future doing a specific job, that doesn't involve JSS/Amphib as part of SCTF.  I think the only two aircraft doing anything with the SCTF will be the Cyclone and TALC's procured aircraft, then yes, TH crews will need to understand littoral ops and MH guys will be in for a real eye opening...NVG being one of the more challenging mindsets to work one's way into...

As an aside, it will be interesting to see what the Air Force does with the TH/MH communities...knowing the AF, they'll try and slam them together, still under a Colonel Wing Commander, and have 45% of the Air Force's fleet under a Col, then still have how many MP/TPT/FTR WComd Col's tripping all over each other....oh well...maybe someone will kiss us first, before they....oh, nevermind...

Cheers,
Duey

 

[aesop081]

He may think that.  What worries me is 70-80 other countries didn't get that memo...

You're preaching to the converted my freind  

 

[GO!!!]

HA!

I wonder how long it will take to fit the Sea Kings with Anchor line cables?

The blasphemy of a green painted Sea King deploying jumpers...... warms my heart.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

HA!

I wonder how long it will take to fit the Sea Kings with Anchor line cables?

The blasphemy of a green painted Sea King deploying jumpers...... warms my heart.

The farther that I can stay away from Afghan... errr "Hostileland" while delivering you lot, the happier I am.  ;D

BTW, I would not expect any paint jobs happening soon.  Hope that doesn't offend your fashion sense to ride in a grey helo...

 

[ch124xx]

I'm sitting not 50 feet from those new seats as I type this.  They look very spiffy in the back of a Sea King, Thank-you very much  

Once you start strippng out a Sea King, there is alot of room inside.  I think you guys will be suitably impressed with the results.

Cheers

You are welcome.

 

[ch124xx]

Yes, I'm too seasoned to think that the folks would do it the easy and "combat effective" way...they'll try to fly the thing during the day rather than spend the money to equip them for NVG.  Sadly, and I hope to hell this doesn't happen, but it will take somebody getting injured or worse for someone to come up with the great idea to fly with NVG at night... :  To think that many of us in tac hel have been flying NVG for 16-17 years...and that's decades after the US and UK flew with them...

*sigh*

Cheers,
Duey

Should be a good Combat Helicopter symposium at Shearwater ...  Looking forward to seeing the MH/TacHel discussions.

Funding has not been the key showstopper for CH124 NVG. Ask the question at the symposium.

 

[Baz]

...Too bad you can't get to the Helicopter warfare symposium in Shearwater at the end of March- alot of baggage that we as an Air Force have not dealt with effectively since 1967 is going to get thrown onto the table- in all it's smelly, messy glory...

I think I've got it sorted, message this week, symposium 30-31 Mar as part of my HHT first week of April, a lot of leave  and CCU in Jun  ;D

'Course, six months from now when I'm buried by that bagge I might not be so happy  :

 

[Rigger]

One item I found interesting in the news article is that "no new weapons will be added". One would think that you would want another C6 on the left side of the A/C. At sea it makes sense only having one gun on one side ( you can decide what side of the A/C you want to present to the threat). During land operations you generally don't know where the threat is.

Has there been any discussion on on the crewing of this A/C yet, besides the pilots?