Into the Darkness
Wear blinkers like a thoroughbred, bolt a 1 Kilogram weight to your forehead with a counter balance on your nape and you’re set to head into the darkness....
The view of an urban area through Night Vision Goggles (NVGs). (OH-07-0653-03).
Welcome to the world of night flying with Night Vision Goggles. And make no mistake night flying isn’t easy. Like other military flying it calls into play skills that are not normally used in the commercial world. Iroquois captain SQNLDR ‘Coops’ Cooper outlines the reasons for night flying and some of the dangers attached to it.
Exercise Pekapeka is No 3 Squadron’s annual night flying exercise employing the use of Night Vision Goggles (NVG). Typically it involves the whole Squadron deploying to a remote location and operating on a reverse cycle. That is where everyone sleeps during the day, with the work day commencing around 1600Hrs and concluding around 0600. This year however, it was conducted from Ohakea over 12-16 May and again for the second week in June. The change is due to the Squadron’s ongoing training requirement and East Timor deployment. With the exercise running nightly from 1600 – 2200hrs the Squadron can still maintain some day activity.
Why Night Flying?
An Iroquois on the ground. (OH-07-0653-02).
Concealment is the objective. While the mighty Huey is not quiet by nature, its noise does reverberate making it difficult to pinpoint exactly where it is. Even when you can see it, it would be difficult to take aim if you were the enemy on the ground. Contrary to a famous Hollywood movie, switching off the main generator and entering stealth mode only works on Hollywood helicopters as ours have not had that modification embodied. Without NVGs the helicopter would need to have position lights on so others in the formation could see it, not to mention using the landing light to see, rendering concealment impossible.
What Do We Do?
The aim is to do everything by night that we do by day. While there are a few things that are not achievable at night, for the most part we can. This includes Black Role type operations in support of Counter Terrorist (CT) groups, Green Role battlefield operations in support of the NZ Army, and other produced services such as Search and Rescue. Ex Pekapeka (first week) concentrated on Black Role operations in which we provide the platform for insertion of CT groups by either landing, hover jumping (jumping off the skid while the helicopter hovers along) or fast roping (sliding down a long rope). Cover during the insertion is provided by forces on the ground, or in the air from a supporting aircraft. Once inserted, the specialist teams conduct their own operation to neutralise the threat. The first week saw assaults on local buildings and factories, culminating in an assault on the Inter-islander Ferry (day) and to the Belmont bunkers North of Wellington on Friday night.
What Are NVGS?
NVGs are electronic devices that convert light energy into a usable TV picture. They form a pair of tubes, one for each eye, and are ‘hands free’ mounted onto the front of the helmet.
How Do They Work?
View through NVGs. (OH-07-0653-04).
Light energy comes in many forms such as ambient light from stars or the moon, to artificial light such as lamps and vehicles, and everything in between such as reflection. NVGs take this energy, converts it into an electronic signal, and presents the user with a TV picture. The quality of the picture produced is dependant on many factors such as reflectance, contrast and illumination. Contrary to popular belief, they do not turn night into day, as on the best night in the best conditions the best you will get is 20/40 vision, with little depth perception, no peripheral vision and a 40 degree field of view.
Watch Out!
Be aware of the illusions associated with NVGs. These include auto kinesis, when a static light appears to move when you stare at it for a while. Ground light misinterpretation when you confuse ground lights in the distance with stars. There are also reversible and height perspective illusions, which I won’t bore you with, plus many others. The restricted field of view means peripheral clues are missed making it hard to judge rates of movement near the ground.
Basically, the vision they give would not pass a drivers license eye test.
In The Darkness
View through NVGs. (OH-07-0653-12).
Standard operations such as low level formation flying to 50 feet both over land and water enables covert ingress and egress to and from objectives. It’s covert in the sense that while you will most likely hear the aircraft, sighting one will be difficult, and getting a shot at one nigh on impossible. Getting to the objective, the aim is to get the assault group onto the objective as fast as possible, minimizing the likely time of visibility. Support duties are also required in the form of Command and Control and logistic type moves where vehicle movement would be too slow. This is the crux of Exercise Pekapeka: Getting the CT group to the objective on time and as efficiently as possible so they can execute their operation. Using objectives around the local area such as factories and high rise buildings, missions take the form of ‘no notice’ simple type scenarios involving one to two aircraft to more complex multifaceted and therefore planned missions of four aircraft.
At The End Of The Day
No 3 Squadron has the responsibility of providing a platform to a number of organisations for the insertion of personnel to a specific location. Exercise Pekapeka enables valuable training in just one of those facets, specifically by night, to any location, be it on land or sea, static or moving.
Day For Night
Members of the STG rappel onto the ferry’s top deck. (OH-08-0310-01).
The 10.00am sailing of the Inter-islander ferry from Picton to Wellington on Friday 16 May set the scene for a combined police Special Tactics Group (STG) and RNZAF No. 3 Squadron counter-terrorism training exercise. The routine training, involving fast rope rappelling, saw members of the police STG rappel from an RNZAF Iroquois onto the deck of the Awetere Inter-islander ferry as it made its way across Cook Strait. Iroquois captain SQNLDR Nigel Cooper of RNZAF No. 3 Squadron said the exercise was a great success.
A joint No.3 Squadron/Police Special Tactics Group (STG) exercise. (OH-08-0310-04).
‘We achieved our aim which was getting the team on-board the ship.’ SQNLDR Cooper said the combined exercise provided the Iroquois crew with the opportunity to practice fast rope rappelling during a realistic training situation. Inter-islander passengers and crew had been well briefed by the Police and RNZAF prior to the training exercise.