JК
The Third Option :: Flynn Vince
Страница: 208 из 267It was manned twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, by a rotating set of pilots, technicians, and mechanics. When the call came in to scramble, the pilots were off the couch and strapped into the cockpit of the advanced Bell 430 helicopter within seconds. With the help of the chopper's Full Authority Digital Electronic Control system, the bird was started and ready for takeoff in thirty seconds. The Bell 430's normal civilian configuration was for two pilots and seven passengers. This bird had room for only four passengers. The rest of the room was taken up by surveillance equipment. A lone technician sat in back to monitor it.
As the four-bladed chopper began to roll away from die hangar, the copilot asked the control tower for permission to take off and gave them his desired heading. The request was granted almost instantly. No flight plan would be filed. No record would be kept of the helicopter's departure.
The pilots were both alumni of the Army's famous 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The group was known as the Night Stalkers. Both men had flown together in the dangerous skies over Somalia back in 1993. They considered themselves lucky to be alive. Several of their closest friends didn't make it back from that deployment.
The power was increased to the twin-turbine Allison 250-C40B engines. The helicopter lifted gracefully from the tarmac, its three landing wheels instantly retracting into the smooth underbelly of the machine. Heading due east, to avoid the main north-south runways of the base, the helicopter reached an altitude of three hundred feet and leveled off. They quickly reached a cruising speed of one hundred forty miles an hour on a loose easterly heading. One minute into the flight, the technician in back gave the copilot the exact location of their target. The copilot punched the numbers into his navigational computer, and a second later the computer gave him an ETA of nine minutes and thirty-four seconds.
The fast and quiet helicopter sliced through the cool fall air. Most pilots would be nervous flying at three hundred feet during the day, let alone a dark overcast evening, but these pilots were different. They had been trained by the U.S. Army to fly in the worst weather conditions possible, and in helicopters that were far less responsive than the Bell 430. To them, going from the noisy drab green choppers of the Army to the sleek, shiny; and quiet Bell 430 was like going from a Ford Taurus to a Jaguar.
As they neared the bay and the bright lights of the city faded behind them the pilots donned their night-vision goggles in staggered intervals, making sure to give each other time to adjust.
As the four-bladed chopper began to roll away from die hangar, the copilot asked the control tower for permission to take off and gave them his desired heading. The request was granted almost instantly. No flight plan would be filed. No record would be kept of the helicopter's departure.
The pilots were both alumni of the Army's famous 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The group was known as the Night Stalkers. Both men had flown together in the dangerous skies over Somalia back in 1993. They considered themselves lucky to be alive. Several of their closest friends didn't make it back from that deployment.
The power was increased to the twin-turbine Allison 250-C40B engines. The helicopter lifted gracefully from the tarmac, its three landing wheels instantly retracting into the smooth underbelly of the machine. Heading due east, to avoid the main north-south runways of the base, the helicopter reached an altitude of three hundred feet and leveled off. They quickly reached a cruising speed of one hundred forty miles an hour on a loose easterly heading. One minute into the flight, the technician in back gave the copilot the exact location of their target. The copilot punched the numbers into his navigational computer, and a second later the computer gave him an ETA of nine minutes and thirty-four seconds.
The fast and quiet helicopter sliced through the cool fall air. Most pilots would be nervous flying at three hundred feet during the day, let alone a dark overcast evening, but these pilots were different. They had been trained by the U.S. Army to fly in the worst weather conditions possible, and in helicopters that were far less responsive than the Bell 430. To them, going from the noisy drab green choppers of the Army to the sleek, shiny; and quiet Bell 430 was like going from a Ford Taurus to a Jaguar.
As they neared the bay and the bright lights of the city faded behind them the pilots donned their night-vision goggles in staggered intervals, making sure to give each other time to adjust.