#combat pilots

Now when it comes to G forces the discussion is more open. We (combat pilots) and they (F1 drivers) will pull some heavy Gs that’s for sure. Formula one drivers will pull greater Gs and in different directions than a typical combat helicopter pilot, but not a jet fighter pilot who will pull in greater Gs. So the G forces experienced are in very different ways.

Formula One drivers usually experience 5G while braking, 2G while accelerating, and 4 to 6G while cornering.

Talking to my RAF friends, they say for jet fighters , 5 to 10 seconds at 4 to 5G vertically typically leads to tunnel vision and then loss of consciousness. Fighter jets can pull up to 9G vertically, and the more a pilot can take without blacking out, the better their chances in a dogfight.

For combat helicopter pilots the most you’ll do is anywhere between 2 to 4 Gs. In an old Lynx for example you might get away with pulling a 2.7G and other combat helicopters like a Black Hawk or an Apache AH64 would be around 3.7 to 4 G at best whilst climbing and depending on the weight of your load.

While fighter pilots are fit and actually pull even more Gs then even modern day Formula 1 cars, a long air-to-air fight would only be a couple minutes. Their bodies might be contorted with their head back looking out the top of the canopy doing 7-9 Gs but only for a limited period of time. The fighter pilot will also have a higher continuous G load which puts a different strain on the body and even more so the brain. He or she could be pulling 7+ Gs for 15-20 seconds which might not sound like a lot but that puts their body weight over 1,000 pounds trying to move and look around and at the same time it is pulling the blood out of their brain. There might be a fraction of second gap to reverse and slap the Gs on again.

The Formula 1 guys are out there doing turn after turn for almost 2 hours and in some pretty good heat in places like Singapore. The G forces are parallel to the driving surface which puts a lot of strain in the neck, but it is not pulling the blood down from the brain. The Gs loads are short and come from all different directions from braking to turning. A similar type G comes to carrier pilots on a cat shot or an arrested landing. The old short hydraulic ‘cats’ (catapults) could impart 16+ lateral Gs to a loaded jet. These lateral Gs are parallel to the surface like the Formula 1 cars. However, it was straight back, so with a head rest it wasn’t much strain on the neck and because of the direction would not pull blood out of the brain.

The Formula 1 drivers shouldn’t be in any danger of G loss of consciousness because of the direction of the Gs. They could easily lose consciousness based on fatigue if they were not in such great shape. They are working their arses off all around the track for almost two hours. This is conditioning and practice. They also need to have their brain working near perfectly for those two hours, hitting every gear shift and not hitting the wall or somebody else.

It is strange when you’ve been flying million dollars worth of hardware with some of the most cutting edge and lethal weapons system know to man that you become part of the hardware system and when you cease flying, your body has to adjust. It’s all about conditioning and practice…and avoid getting killed.

Anyone could fly a plane straight in the air, but would instantly lose control in a helicopter. A plane’s control scheme is rather intuitive. Throttle up and down, stick goes left/right and forward/back. A plane will only ever try to go where you point the nose. A helicopter can move in many more ways and must be carefully managed. If you’re flying any helicopter such as for example a Lynx (now de-commissioned) or its successor, a Wildcat, or an Apache, you are almost always using both hands and feet doing four different things at once.

Even our eyes had to learn how to work independently of each other. A monocle sat permanently over our right iris. A dozen different instrument readings from around the cockpit were projected into it. At the flick of a button, a range of other images could also be superimposed underneath the green glow of the instrument symbology, replicating the TADS’ or PNVS’ camera images and the Longbow Radars’ targets. The monocle left the pilot’s left eye free to look outside the cockpit, saving him the few seconds that it took to look down at the instruments and then up again.

When you first train on these helicopters, it’s not uncommon, and it was certainly the case for me, that new pilots suffer terrible headaches as the left and right eye competed for dominance. It usually starts within minutes, long before take-off. As the eyes try to adjust over the following weeks and months the headaches took longer to set in. Worse, my eyes whirled independently of each other throughout, like a woman possessed in a schlocky horror movie. It was a year before mine disappeared altogether.

Human eyes did not evolve toward seeing in the dark. Every pilot learns the basics: Your eyes contain rods and cones. You use your rods at night. Unlike cones, which are concentrated in the centre, rods are spread out to the periphery across your eyeball. Our peripheral vision comes at a cost to overall visual acuity and colour perception.

There’s spatial disorientation, closely followed by its scarier cousin, vertigo. The aviation term for the worst-case scenario that can result from these malefactors is Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). Of course the Army Air Corps trains its pilots to recognise physiological degradations to which we were prone at night, but training cannot eliminate our evolutionary limitations. Every pilot has experienced vertigo or spatial disorientation. If you’ve ever stomped on the brakes as a result of car movement in the next lane at a red light, you’ve experienced spatial disorientation too.

“All you got to do is trust those instruments,” was constantly beaten into us in training. This mantra I kept repeating in my brain before almost every take off because it does not come naturally.

Try this experiment. Hold a book or map up in front of your left eye about 2-3 feet away. Get a toilet paper roll and place it in front of your right eye so that you don't see the map or book but can see a television or a monitor in the distance. The TV should be at least 10 feet away from you. Sit for several minutes concentrating on what is on the TV you will find that your brain does not "see" the book in front of your left eye at all until you start thinking about it again. The same thing will happen if you start reading the book using your left eye.

This is what a helicopter combat pilot must do. He must switch between information from his left eye (about 2 ft away) on the instrument panel and information presented to his right eye that is focused at infinity. He must do this quickly and at the correct time in order to get the right information at the right time. This takes quite a bit of practice.

I’ll share one story.

I had a love-hate relationship with Night Vision Devices (NVDs). They “turn night into day,” we’re told, which is true if during the day you see only shades of green and black and your field of view is limited to 40 degrees through two separate toilet paper tubes. There is also the weight of the goggles, which causes neck strain. They’re mounted on the front of your helmet, and a battery pack attaches to the back. Sometimes there’s a counterweight added to the battery pack to keep the goggles from slipping. The rig weighs more than two pounds, which doesn’t sound like much, but I challenge you to balance a bag of flour on your head for three hours or so and move your head constantly. Hot spots may also develop from your helmet, and you can get headaches if your focus is off by even a little.

I was on a night time mission over in Afghanistan. First, it’s night time so vertigo: risk factor No. 1. Secondly, it was the end of a long flight so fatigue: risk factor No. 2. Thirdly, I would ‘tactically dehydrate’ before missions, because there are no bathrooms in helicopters, and so dehydration: risk factor No. 3. Fourthly, you’re over an active battlefield zone where you are in danger of being shot at or shot down by enemy fire, so you’re on constant alert and readiness which mean also being in control of fear: risk factor No.5. Although I would classify No.5 under the ‘Pucker Factor’ is the formal name of the equation that states the more hairy the situation is, the more of the seat cushion will be sucked up your sweaty arse.

On the flight towards the end maybe I turned my head too quickly to the right as I simultaneously pulled in power to climb. Multiple-axis inputs to the inner ear, whether you’re in a helicopter or on a roller coaster, can send your internal gyroscope spinning. My co-pilot spoke up: “So are you planning on turning back towards the base any time soon?”

I understood what was happening, but I couldn’t make my hands move the flight controls. The helicopter’s attitude gyro showed we were level, and the altitude looked fine, so we weren’t in immediate danger. But I felt my insides flip-flop. “Feels like - already - we’re in a turn,” I sputtered.

“I have controls” came the calm no nonsense reply. I relinquished my sweaty grip on the stick, scanning my instruments as my co-pilot turned us back on profile - a simple manoeuvre that felt like a barrel roll to me - to land safely on the ground and call it a night.

While technology has not yet defeated the false sensations experienced by pilots throughout history, it has helped us compensate for our human inadequacies: tools like altitude hold, Night Vision Devices (NVDs), and various collision avoidance systems all help us regularly cheat death.

In terms of long term physical and mental damage. The jury is still out.

It may not surprise you to learn that although the mechanisms of G-induced stresses on the spinal structure of military pilots are well understood. But what is less known is the relationships between G forces and the intensity of physical activity, fitness, occupational musculoskeletal symptoms, and the degree of resulting disabilities. It varies from person to person and how physical active they are. I did suffer from back problems and I needed physical therapy, and now do yoga to keep myself supple and my spine strong - but this wasn’t really due to flying combat helicopters but more because I loved to do parachuting and I had a bad fall (on landing) and it wasn’t pleasant. The best way to avoid greater physical risks is to remain physically active by doing energetic sports or other physical pursuits. When you’re in the armed services that’s less of a problem of course but once you’re a civilian with a new job or profession then you have adapt accordingly. That’s not easy of course.

Although you raised the issue of consequences of long term physical damage, what goes unspoken is the mental damage and its possible long term toll. Given it’s Remembrance Sunday (or Armistice Day in France), it’s worth remembering even veterans who leave war behind, there are veterans for whom the war never leaves them. I’ve dealt with this issue elsewhere in my blog.

Speaking for myself and my own experience, I can say that aviation veterans are often exposed to a wide array of traumatic experiences in service that may cause PTSD. Aviators who were in a near missile strike risk developing PTSD due to the incident. Coming so close to a near death experience is sufficient trauma to cause mental health problems in the future if you don’t deal with it honestly and head on with the right help. Another common occurrence for aviators that could lead to PTSD is being fired upon by ground fire. Much like a near missile strike, this direct combat experience has been known to cause an aviator to develop PTSD. Talking to my RAF peers, transporting wounded or deceased service members in a helicopter has been known to be also traumatic enough to cause PTSD.

So why don’t we hear more about it?

It’s because many combat pilots and aviators in general fail to report their symptoms. In my experience it is partly to do with ‘a stiff upper lip’; it’s a very British thing and it’s very real in the army where stoicism is prized above being whiney or being a bothersome nuisance. But it’s also partly - mostly, I would say - to do with the fear, that each pilots dreads most, that if they are diagnosed with PTSD then they would risk being grounded and unable to fly. For a combat pilot that is worse than death. Even worse is the guilt trip you put yourself through of not wanting to let down your regimental comrade in arms or the soldiers on the ground that are counting on you. And thus, as so often happens, pilots, like their brethren soldiers on the ground, just internalise any problems until their time is up. As I’ve written elsewhere on my blog I was fortunate to minimise any PTSD effects through the love of my family and close friends (especially those who were veterans themselves), but others were not so fortunate.

Forgive me for this digression as I really didn’t want to end this answer on such a crap note.

On a happier note I will say comparing combat pilots and F1 drivers is like comparing apples and oranges. One of my flight instructors put it this way to me when I was training to be a combat pilot. He said a pilot deals with a 3 dimensional unknown, the Formula 1 driver deals with a very specific 2 dimensional inch perfect extended battle. I think that’s right. We have a different set of skill sets because the demands made upon us are different.

This isn’t a pissing contest so I can say with sincere honesty that I admire the modern day F1 drivers for what they do.

As a racing fan, I marvel at their racing skills and the concentration needed to survive on the track. What people forget is combat pilots are plentiful enough, just look at the air forces or air corps as part of the armies and the navies around the world. But how many F1 drivers are there? Since 1950 to the present there have been a total of 772 Formula One drivers drawn from 41 countries. Moreover only 20 elite drivers get to be on the grid in any Grand Prix race (it has hovered up to 24 to 26 in the past). That’s an elite company to be in.

They are there because of talent, luck, courage, self-belief, and sheer bloody hard work. They are all special - er....with the exception of Nikita Mazepin (daddy’s Russian roubles got him a seat at cash strapped Haas team).