Post
by tut » Sat Jul 21, 2012 9:48 pm
Stick with the job Ian, I think the Royal Marines would have been a great career for yourself and Luke, but not at present. IED's and snipers are a different type of warfare, I could usually see who was trying to kill me so it was a level playing field, you did not get blown to pieces, just shot. I was only on the ground for three years before I started flying, so that was a different kind of danger but one I was much happier with.
I had forgotten about the Ireland incident, it was when the IRA started out in 1970, and I was over there with 41 CDO flying a Bell 47G as the first troops there. I was flying my CO into his HQ and we used to come under fire, so you had to use a tactical approach. The Lycoming piston engine was not the most reliable in the world, and it cut out whilst I was coming in low level.
The great thing about the Sioux was the inertia that it carried in the rotor blades, so it was probably the best auto-rotating helicopter ever. It meant that though I was committed to a straight in engine off landing, it would have meant into power lines, but I was able to hop over them and still have enough revs to do a run on landing. Like most pilots, if you get it right you are hailed as a hero, especially if you save a senior officer, but in fact you are just doing your job and saving yourself, the passenger is a bonus.
The proviso to joining the RM is if you could get in as a pilot, then that would be a whole new ball game. Get onto the Apache which I never had chance to, and then you really do have bloody big weapons to have fun with.
tut
