The Life Of A Student

EXERCISE NOCTEM WARRIOR DAY IN THE LIFE OF A STUDENT

28 Sqn, based at RAF Benson, recently deployed on Ex NOCTEM WARRIOR 21.

Written By: Flt Lt Rob Humpston

Taking place in the desert of California, they completed various training serials to gain their Environmental Qualification (EQ) for desert flying, more commonly known as dust landing training.

A day at Naval Air Facility El Centro (NAFEC) begins in the same reliable way each day. At 0800, the US National Anthem sounds, the flag is raised at the centre of base, and anyone lucky enough to be outside at that time stands for a full minute to attention, embracing the morning sun as it too welcomes the day.

Once the anthem concludes, students who have more wisely sheltered in their bungalows emerge and make their way to the first event of the day, Heat Acclimatisation Training (HAT). HAT takes place during the first seven days following arrival at NAFEC, and consists, due to the +35°C heat at this time of the morning, of walking leisurely laps of a 400m running track for a set period. Despite the sun having only been up for a few hours, walking a casual pace is still more than enough to thoroughly moisten the unacclimatised student, and the HAT invariably concludes with a return procession to the bungalows for the first of multiple showers of the day.

Having successfully endured the rigours of approximately six laps of a track, the day then proceeds at a steady pace. The flying programme blends day into night flying to make the most of the engineering availability each day, and to best suit the requirements of the training syllabus. Hence, the first sortie of the day usually doesn’t lift until the afternoon, giving plenty of time to visit the gym, or much more desirably, to visit the pool at 1100. Lane swimming in the Olympic-sized outdoor pool is available during the week for two hours a day and runs pleasantly straight into lunchtime. Those lucky enough to have no flying planned on a Thursday can make the most of it by returning to the pool at 1300, to enjoy the availability of the water slides and allowing for some much less productive phys time.

Those who are flying however, head into work after lunch to begin the process of being bemused by US Airspace and Mapping, wondering what time they are actually lifting, and generally shuffling a preflight brief into a semblance of order. The EQ being obtained by 28 Sqn students is completed over two flights, one day and one night. Both flights involve the departure from NAFEC, and a short, ten-minute transit paralleling the Mexican border out to the desert proper, leaving the green oasis of irrigated fields that surround El Centro behind.

Once a landing site has been reached, students practice a number of techniques to enable a safe landing at a dusty site. Those techniques consist in broad terms, of engaging the Native Modes of the aircraft (think autopilot) at correct distances from the landing site whilst wrestling the aircraft onto the correct inbound GPS track.

This results, after a not insignificant amount of negotiation with the flying controls, in bringing the aircraft to a hover 15-foot above the ground with the dust cloud obscuring vision all around. The Crewmen, having kept the front informed of the forming dust and marshalling the aircraft to the correct point, can then finally patter the aircraft onto the surface. Putting the flying part of being a student pilot aside, the desert environment offers some interesting challenges not present in the UK. By far the most noticeable of these is, of course, the heat with the aircraft easily reaching +50°C sat in the sun even before the flight begins. Starting the Chinook becomes a race to get the rotors turning as fast as possible to replace the stifling air that has built up inside.

Before getting to this point however, there is the pleasant task of checking the cockpit and cabin for spiders, snakes, and other fauna of an equally agreeable nature which may have chosen to claim the Chinook overnight. Quite

what the actions would be if a snake was discovered in the cockpit most students hope never to find out.

Having returned triumphantly from a flight, almost certainly a measurable amount lighter in sweat, there is only one destination for the

decompressing student, the Sundowners Club also known as the Mirage.

Here, the final hours of the day can be whiled away with a drink, a game of pool (of the dry green felted variety this time), and an attempt at shuffleboard. This is a game new to almost all students, that consists of a long sand-dusted wooden lane and a number of scoring zones at each end. Teams take turns to slide heavy discs over the sand, aiming for their discs to stop in the scoring zones or knock opposing discs off the board; sand curling, if you will.

And that wraps up a working day of a 28 Sqn student on Ex NOCTEM WARRIOR. The weekends are a different matter, involving a swift two-hour drive down the i8 to San Diego, followed by Go Karting, sand (less sand), sea, sun (also significantly less sun - a welcome change), and a trawl down the seafront bars serving an admirable array of cocktails. But that could be an article in itself.