HOMER, Neb. - While military pilots train regularly on survival tactics, they don’t often have the opportunity to practice the intricacies of being hoisted into a helicopter.
Iowa National Guard Airmen and Soldiers were practicing helicopter extractions of a downed pilot near Homer Nebraska, in mid-June.
Master Sgt. Jeff Campbell, exercise orchestrator and Iowa Air National Guard survival specialist, said water survival is a regular training requirement. He said experiencing the wind, noise and height of hoist training is a crucial part of surviving.
“There is a lot of chaos and a lot of stuff going on,” Campbell said. “The more we can get our aircrew trained, the better it will be for everyone involved.”
For the exercise in Homer, Iowa National Guard Airmen caught a lift from their Iowa Army Guard counterparts in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
The downed pilots in the training exercise were from Iowa’s 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City. The pilot’s rescuers were from the Iowa Army National Guard’s Detachment 1, Company C, 2/211 General Aviation Support Battalion in Davenport.
After flying from the opposite side of the Hawkeye State to the Northeast Nebraska hamlet near Sioux City, the Black Hawk aircrew landed in a freshly cut hay field. The open space next to a large pond doubled as a training area where the trainees first received a safety briefing.
There was a tinge of nervousness at first, as KC-135 pilots are not accustomed to handing control of their takeoff and landing to someone else. One by one, however, each member of the group was harnessed into a rescue strop or harness and hoisted to the helicopter.
As temperatures climbed into the mid-80s, the group of about a dozen pilots jumped into the nearby water and waited to be extracted as they were sprayed with a shower of rotor wash.
The bottom line, according to Campbell, is sewing in muscle memory so each pilot knows what to do during a rescue situation.
“If something does happen and they find themselves alone in the water, they will have the tools and the knowledge to get through it,” said Campbell.
Each Airman got to experience the helplessness and trust of relying on their rescuer to bring them to safety. The Iowa Soldiers used their rescue equipment and checked off some of their training requirements.