US helicopters downed in N Iraq

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Seems like the enemy got a lucky two-for-one strike...

Which begs the question, why were they flying so closely in the 1st place!?

If it was an RPG or man portable SAM hit in the tail wing or tail rotor area, the helo that was hit would maneuver very hard to try to regain attitude control - remember, the pilot and AC don't have a ****ing clue what happened, because it happened outside and behind them. They just see every goddamn warning light in the cockpit go off while moving uncontrolled in any axis at a rotational rate that can exceed 720 degrees of arc per second. In addition to loss of lift, possible fire, loss of altitude, and the pilot and AC have small fractions of a second to try to stabilize this and get the bird down in a controlled manner. It's entirely possible that to avoid immediately smacking the ground, and/or to look for a place to land, the pilot or AC yanked full collective to pull the bird up in a hurry, and that, combined with the loss of forward velocity, caused a collision with the trailing bird, who didn't have time to react either.

As to why they're flying that close, there are lots of reasons it's standard formation for helos in a combat zone. If you want to know all the details, just pester me, that's what those air assault wings and pathfinder badge were for.

Oh, and people, gloating or not, perceived or not, hypsensitive or not, CALM THE **** DOWN, PEOPLE!

And by the way, for those uppity about helo casualties from whatever cause, war is a numbers game - sometimes you beat the odds and sometimes you don't. Hundreds of helos are flying every day all over the country, and most of those sorties, nothing happens, then the **** hits the fan. If these were all happening nicely spaced a month apart, it wouldn't stick out, but the plain facts are that we're moving large numbers of supplies and forces by helo every day, so sooner or later, **** is bound to happen.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
As to why they're flying that close, there are lots of reasons it's standard formation for helos in a combat zone. If you want to know all the details, just pester me, that's what those air assault wings and pathfinder badge were for

I would guess that flying spaced out a mile between would mean that the enemy has time to prepare a set ambush once they see the first one flying over. Plus the second bird is usually left alive, so it can report on a crash site etc.

How close am I?

[MichaeltheGreat]

That's a part of it, but mutual fire support from the door gunners, mutual visual observation of SAM/AAA, minimizing far field noise to alert more enemies, being able to insert more forces more rapidly to secure hot LZs, better confirmation of observed ground target or LZ / IZ locations, minimization of IR residual trails for SAMS, close coordination of chalks when you fast rope into an IZ and less total time into and out of LZs and IZs are also factors.