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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0837.PDF
476 FLIGHT International, 26 March 1964 Good scout: the Agusta-Bell 47G-3B-I adopted for Army units Army Rings the Bell THE proposed acquisition of 150 Agusta-Bell 47G-3B-1 lighthelicopters for the British Army, announced in the Commonslast week and reported on page 452, approximately will double at one stroke the present air establishment of the Army, which has been increasing since the Army Air Corps was founded, and placed under direct War Office control, in 1957. But the new helicopters, their pilots, and their servicing crews, paradoxically, will not be part of the Army Air Corps. The 47Gs will be issued direct to actual front-line units—infantry battalions and armoured, artillery, engineering or signal regiments—flown by officers or SNCOs recruited from those units, who will remain professional infantrymen, gunners, sappers or signals specialists and simply add flying to their skills. Supported by small detach- ments of REME craftsmen, the helicopters—in flights ranging from two to six machines, and averaging three—will be integral parts of the fighting units; they will be under the orders of the unit commander, going everywhere the unit goes. In time, no doubt, they will be no more remarkable pieces of unit equipment than scout cars or Land-Rovers—except, of course, in versatility. For this reason the Army's insistence has been on a thoroughly reliable, completely de-bugged and untemperamental machine which can be kept serviceable with minimum trouble under rough front-line conditions. An officer of the War Office Directorate of Land/Air Warfare told Flight International that the Army is delighted to be getting the 47G—an aircraft completely de-bugged in years of service with the US Army and other Services. The Army Council approved and accepted the concept of the unit light helicopter last October and while evaluations have been in progress to select the particular type, steps have already been Xaken to expand the training organization ready for its arrival in quantity. REME, which added a number of aviation trades to its career structure some years ago, has already increased the numbers of servicing personnel being trained at Bordon, Hants, where basic training is done, and at the AAC Centre Technical Wing at Middle Wallop, where their training is completed. Pilot intakes at the Middle Wallop centre are being boosted from April 13, and the large expansion will make Middle Wallop a hive of great activity with a really humming circuit. For although the helicopters will not be part of the AAC, the •Corps will be responsible for the Army's aviation training and, in the early period while the pilot build-up is still taking place, will provide some of its own pilots for unit helicopter duties, in addition to running its own independent flights, for reconnaissance or liaison, attached to Army formation—theatre, corps, division or brigade group—headquarters. Pilot recruits will come from the user units (the minimum recruiting rank will be corporal and minimum rank on graduation sergeant). After undergoing normal RAF aircrew selection tests at Biggin Hill, they will be further tested by an Army selection board at Middle Wallop on their military knowledge—this to maintain the policy that British Army pilots are essentially professional soldiers first and airmen second. They will then begin a 31-weeks course at Middle Wallop, with about 190 flying hours. The first 60hr will be spent on elementary training in Chipmunks—this aircraft being a cheaper means of inculcating basic airmanship than helicopters—and this will be followed by 60hr on Hillers. The first two stages are to be handled hy civilian instructors of Airwork Services Training Ltd, under •contract. The course will conclude with 70hr spent on 47Gs, under AAC instructors, learning to use the aircraft tactically. Following a month's leave they will then return, after ten months absence, to their parent arms for operational duties. There they will intersperse three-year flying tours with spells of normal, ground-based regi- mental duties, to ensure that their basic military abilities do not rust. Unit commanders themselves will attend a short course to learn what they can reasonably expect light helicopters to do. Initial planning for the unit helicopter flights calls for one officer pilot for every two NCO pilots, but this ratio may have to be modified according to the rate of pilot recruitment. Outstanding NCOs, possessing the depth of military knowledge necessary together with the aptitude to make good pilots, are at a premium in the Army today and obviously fighting units will not be happy at losing all their best men to the helicopter flights. Each unit flight, including its servicing technicians, will be commanded by the senior pilot and for a three-aircraft, three-pilot flight, a five-man REME team, comprising one supervising artificer and four aircraft technicians, is envisaged. The unit servicing personnel will be responsible only for first-line maintenance; they will be supported by mobile servicing repair detachments who will move forward to undertake more extensive jobs and, further back, semi-mobile workshops will undertake second-line maintenance. The whole key to the unit light helicopter concept is quick reaction. The commander of an entrenched unit who can hear, but not see, tanks approaching will be able to order one of his own aircraft into the air immediately, for the threat to be gauged, rather than having to endure the delay of signalling to an AAC flight some way back, perhaps through several radio nets; waiting for the AAC pilot to be briefed, fly into his area, reconnoitre and then report. Commanders will be able to reconnoitre personally if necessary (the Agusta-Bell 47G-3B-1 is a three-seat aircraft) for the best understanding of the situation and not have to rely on secondhand assessments. Ground reconnaissance parties, or observation teams, can be moved rapidly from place to place. Advancing infantry and armoured formations will be able to reconnoitre the route ahead, and spot opposing forces. The unit commander can inspect the area into which his unit will deploy. Anti-tank weapons can be ferried swiftly to where they may suddenly be required and even fired from the 47Gs. In fact, as US Army experience has shown, the ready availability of a light helicopter gives rise to such a variety of uses that to attempt to list all those to which the Army's 47Gs may be put would more than fill this page. It is no exaggeration to say that they are likely to revolutionize tactical thinking, as they have done elsewhere. To Far East in the Autumn Apart from any political or economic advantage which might accrue from purchasing the first 50 from Agusta, in Italy—the first purchase of modern Italian aeronautical equipment by Britain— it is certainly wise as far as the Army's most urgent operational needs are concerned. Agusta have an established line and helicopters are being purchased virtually off the shelf—they will begin arriving this summer at a healthy monthly rate. After the first two dozen or so have been sent to the training organization—including some to the RAF's Central Flying School, where the Army's own flying instructors are trained—47Gs will begin to reach operational units later this year, and it is no secret that the most urgent need is felt by units in the Far East. The Italian batch will all have been delivered by early next year and scarcely any interval is expected between the end of Italian deliveries and the beginning of Westland deliveries. (The Army, incidentally, is wisely determined that Agusta and Westland-built machines shall be absolutely identical, to the last individual screw—a hot and steamy clearing in Borneo, with aggressive irregulars roving around, is no place to sort out subtle differences in Italian and English tolerances.) More than a simple expansion of the Army's air establishment, the acquisition of unit light helicopters will represent a very large swing in the proportion of fixed-wing to rotary-wing flying in the Army. The AAC has comprised, until now, roughly equal numbers of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Its Skeeter light helicopters, which are suitable only for temperate climates, will be transferred to do the unit helicopter job in GermanyandBritain for some years, while its own flights re-equip with the five-seat Scout. The Auster is due to be retired in 1965, leaving the Beaver the only fixed- wing aircraft, equipping liaison flights. With the 47Gs in service, about 90 per cent of the Army's flying will be rotor-borne. When all 150 have been delivered in about three years time Phase 2 of the Army's aviation planning will be virtually complete. We are not yet privileged to know what Phase 3 will bring but it seems almost sure to mean even more light helicopters to follow this first sizeable, and very welcome, batch. ROBERT R. RODWELL
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