I’ve written before of Navy training – it’s very
effective, if not always very fun. But I think it’s safe to say that the
Helicopter Dunker, which is a subset of water survival training, and requires
refresher training every four years, pegs out both meters: Max effectiveness,
max not very fun.
Some of you may remember the film, “Officer and a Gentleman ,” starring
Richard Gere, and set in the 1980’s. It caused quite a stir for a while,
but having seen it recently, it’s surprising how badly the film has aged
over the years. The “poor kid with a bad attitude who survives a trial by
fire with the assistance of a tough-love drill instructor and his poor factory
girl sex toy who nevertheless loves him for who he is, while tragically losing
his best friend to suicide” zeitgeist seemed within a hair’s breadth
of being anachronistic when the film debuted, but it’s merely painful to
watch now.
Anyhoo.
There was a vignette in the film about
the “Dilbert Dunker ,” essentially a cage
sledded to a 25 foot down ramp which plunged aviation candidates into a pool,
and then flipped them over. The trial in this case was to brave the impact with
the water (not that bad really) and then once upside down, fight your way clear
of the restraint harness and cage, then swim to the surface to give a hearty
“thumbs up.” That part actually kind of sucked, if only because the
pool water, what with all the face slamming and inversion, gets jammed up into
the crevasses and secret places in your sinuses that you were only dimly aware
existed. In the film, one candidate bails out of the program right there and
then, when faced with the Dilbert Dunker. Which was kind of silly, and if
that’s all it took to get a guy to back down, then you definitely
didn’t want him on your wing in
combat.
The reality of it was that it
while you’d never sell tickets to the ride at Disney World, it was over
quickly and you’d never have to do it again – it was a one-time
qual. In fact, I don’t know if the Dilbert Dunker is still being done in
Pensacola – you’d never try to ditch a tactical jet in the open sea,
or even in a swimming pool, because 1), you’d never survive the impact,
and 2) after all, what were ejection seats for?
When the motor(s) quit and the ocean
is coming up, it pulls the ejection handle, and then it goes for a parachute
ride. Or else it gets the hose again. That’s why CNO put it there.
The ejection handle, that is. Not the
hose.
We put it down as one more
piece in the overall harassment package (like the boxing classes we had to take
in flight school) and moved on.
Now the
helo dunker is another thing altogether. You do
that every four years while in a flight status, and you get four rides each
time. On ride number one, you climb the ladder to the elevated platform. You
strap into a pilot’s seat (but I’m not a helicopter pilot! Shut
up!). And wait. And wait. And waAAGH! – they plunge the d@mn tube into the
water, where it sits for a
moment.
But
only for a moment. Helicopters are top-heavy; since the engines, rotors and
running gear are all at the top, well above the center of buoyancy. In other
words, they have negative static and dynamic stability, once you get them wet.
They roll over, upside
down.
You, gentle reader, might be
forgiven for presuming that it would be in your best interests to make your exit
before the helicopter rolled over, upside down. But the odds are that all of
those rotor blades and stuff are still moving pretty quickly while she’s
upside right, carrying with them kinetic energy that has the potential to leave
all sorts of nasty gashes in your tender skin. They tend to slow down pretty
quickly once they come in contact with the sea. And from there to being upside
down, immersed in water, strapped into your seat, is a very short trip indeed.
Once all motion stops, you get to release your harness, and swim out the nearest
exit. You swim to the surface, under the watchful eyes of scuba-rigged
instructors, give your thumbs up, and shivering, get back in line for the next
ride.
Which is like the first, only you
have to exit from the “cargo” section on the tube, back aft. You
bundle into the cargo section with six or so of your closest friends, hit the
water, grab a hold of a reference point (you’ll need this later) and swim
to the surface, trying to snort the chlorinated water out of your now thoroughly
irritated sinuses.
Simple enough,
yah?
But wait! There’s
more!
It turns out the helicopters also
fly at night! Meaning they could crash at night. So your next two rides are done
with blacked-out goggles on.
The first
blacked-out ride is from the pilot’s seat, which isn’t so very bad.
Except that all this crashing into the water and rolling over is fairly
disorienting, when you can’t see. And you don’t know which way the
dunker is going to roll. Which is the point, I suppose, and why we’re
taught to grab a hold of a reference point as we go into the water. It helps you
find your way out. But it does not necessarily help you find your way up to the
surface, because blindfolded and underwater, that part is a little more
problematical. (For all my Air Force readers, problematical means:
“hard.”)
Now, it takes a
little bit before the dunker rolls over, so you don’t want to start
holding your breath too soon. You could find yourself out of air, just when your
need is greatest. Bail out of the cabin too soon because of oxygen bankruptcy,
and you get to do the ride again.
Which
no one wants to do.
But, as you
don’t know which way the helo is going to roll, the timing of that last
breath is pretty critical. If it rolls towards the side you’re on,
you’ll feel the water coming up your legs before it gets to your face, and
you can snatch that last breath. If on the other hand, it rolls away from you,
the timing of that last breath is a little more difficult to nail. You’re
wet, get dry and suddenly get wet again, all over, all at once.
Which isn’t as fun as it
sounds.
I can tell you from personal
experience that snatching your last breath just after your face is immersed in
the water leaves you very unhappy with the training process. It is a tactical
error of the worst sort, and you get very highly motivated to exit the helo
before all motion stops, which is not at all satisfactory to the instructional
staff.
You get to do the ride
again.
Finally comes your
“graduation ride.” You and all your several classmates get to bundle
into the cargo area, plunge blindfolded into the pool, roll over, snatch that
last breath, and then for something slightly different, exit out of the same
hatch.
Which you can’t see,
since you’re blindfolded.
And
you’re in a kind of competition with six to eight strong young men, corn
fed, the pride of American youth, for that very same exit.
And you can’t see them either,
and they can’t see you.
And
you’re all, all of you, very strongly motivated to get out of the helo
dunker, and back to the surface, just as fast as your corn fed, steel-toed boot
shod legs and arms can take you.
And
now I want to introduce you to Roger: Roger was a classmate of mine from school,
a great guy. Born and raised in Gastonia, North Carolina, and the son of a truck
driver, Roger was made when meat was cheap. He was six foot four of broad
shouldered, superbly muscled, no-fat frame in a Marine haircut. He had arms that
were made of steel, and legs that looked like they were carved out of oak. He
grew up hunting and fishing and chopping wood for the fire. He grew up
strong.
He did not grow up swimming, or
being plunged into the water upside down blindfolded. And he didn’t like
it, not one bit. No sir.
And Roger was
my neighbor in the cargo hold, to my immediate right. Between the door and me,
the way out, the only acceptable
exit.
Now, to my mind, the only thing
that could have possibly been worse than being blindfolded in a tube with eight
other guys, slammed into the water, rolled upside down (which way will she
roll?), un-strapping, then navigating your way to a single exit, and then
finding your way to the surface (which way is it?) is to do that sitting next to
the one person in the world who finds it even more objectionable than you do.
Especially when his name is Roger,
and he's six foot four and very, very
strong.
I am cursed with a somewhat
vivid imagination, so on top of all the other things there were to think about
on that short ride down, was the image of getting tangled up with Roger, and
having him get excited (he was already pretty excited) and trying to kick free.
So I waited a little longer than I really wanted on this ride, just to make sure
that wouldn’t happen.
In the
event I got out fairly easily and made my way to the surface, gave my thumbs up,
stripped off the goggles and looked around for Roger. Who was standing on the
pool deck, head hanging down. Beside him was one of our instructors, gesturing
back to the ladder up to the
platform.
Turns out I didn’t have
to worry about Roger being in my way on the way out. He didn’t wait
around.
-------------------------------------
It
really is great training though – since the helo dunker program started,
we’ve lost many fewer shipmates to actual crashes. People who have
survived these crashes over the years have unanimously acclaimed the training
package that our professional water survival instructors put together as the one
reason for their continued existence on this
earth.
-------------------------------------
But
here’s the thing that bugs me about the program, purely from a stewardship
of resources, your-tax-dollars-at-work
perspective:
Lex’s helo dunker
rides over the years: 84
Lex’s
actual helo flights over the years:
2
Number of times those helos landed in
the water: 0
Coefficient of
over-training: tends towards infinity
Posted @
05:32 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
