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Aviation History
1972
1972 - 0049.PDF
WL^tm FLIGHT International. 6 January 1972 32-33 ^E-A .tmliiisrf4^^ it* •• lakeland. The other squadron is based at Long Kesh, an airfield 11 miles south west of Belfast which it shares with about 300 closely guarded internees. This unit provides aerial reconnaissance along the Co Down and Armagh reaches of the border, westward from Carlingford Lough and the Mountains of Mourne. A high level of service ability is maintained—all six aircraft at each unit are frequently available and rarely less than five. The Sioux work closely with armoured-car patrols and are able to speak directly not only to armoured vehicles but to individual soldiers with UHF man-pack radios— useful when they are searching for hidden arms in isolated buildings or making arms searches, strung out over open country or concealed in woods. Navigation is wholly visual and demands an intimate knowledge of the border. "I know every hedge, ditch and tree of it from there to there," a staff sergeant pilot casually remarked, indicating an enormously long stretch of border on a big crew-room map at Omagh. To avoid inadvertent incursions into Republic airspace—and some are tacitly admitted in Lisburn and in Dublin hotly de nounced—pilots do not fly near the border until they have been in Northern Ireland for some considerable time. There is a "sterile area" of 2,000yd on the Ulster side into which Army aircraft do not go without special clearance, which pre-supposes a pilot knows the ground intimately. Trials have begun in both Scouts and Sioux of Decca's Dectrak precision postion-display system which if generally adopted will permit night operations close to the border with fewer "diplomatic" risks. Ambush tactics are favoured by the IRA in the ground fighting—both in urban clashes where various means are tried to lure troops into positions at which previously positioned snipers can adm, and in border skirmishes. There is no evidence of advanced electronic methods yet being employed to lure helicopters and AFVs into traps—no instances of the enemy broadcasting false R/T messages on military wavelengths, although for about two days there was what appeared to be an attempt at jamming in one border area. There is almost certainly IRA monitoring, however, and a high degree of radio secrecy is maintained. No designated helicopter landing site is ever referred to by its geo graphical name or map reference and even main towns and major villages are given code names. Gunmen occasionally fire at helicopters, sometimes from across the border, and occasionally from such embattled urban strongholds as the Bogside, lower Falls and the Ardoyne. In one or two instances they have been hit and precautionary landings have been made but in no case dad the damage render them unserviceable. Nonetheless, Heading photograph, left, gives an indication of the view obtained from a Scout helicopter flying over Belfast. Above left, a 7.62mm general-purpose machine-gun on a sideways-firing swivelling mount operated manually in a Scout. The Sioux, above, can also be fitted with the GPMG. Bottom, fixed weapons fired by the pilot and at a preset convergence angle also have a firing rate of 800 rounds/min the danger from small-arms fire is sufficient for moulded lightweight plastic armour now to have been installed in the cabs of both Sioux and Scouts as, indeed, similar moulded material has been bolted as external panels on virtually all soft-skinned Army vehicles and police Land- Rovers in Northern Ireland. The choppers' best protection is, of course, height and movement and they avoid hovering at all times—as they avoid precisely timed standing patrols. "At 1,500ft you are virtually safe from any musketry the IRA can muster," the same pilot said. "On recce duty there is no need to come lower—given the visibility you can get a good wide scan and full detail from there." "A good wide scan" on the border often means the frustration of seeing suspect men and vehicles escape into the sanctuary of the Republic, or of vehicles approach- »y Zh>--*«*. WSXs^^^^^^Msm toff&W *»'>'"' -3S "•>'" III! IpilBI • ??*»*-• •M^y'T HHML . '*lH-Ji& "[^0^-i?v • ''M! TjjrTM «Jfillill»sS«iP^? llsBssp SwisssjIBPlK wwm m
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