¶ Specialised Aviation Qualification Course
JSFAW SAQT
TASK FORCE JACKAL
¶ WIP
¶ Scope
This document will train the student on all things that JSFAW pilots need to know to operate their aircraft in operation, this will allow the student to fly in operation without performing communications with ground forces. Ground communications will be done in A2G training.
¶ Purpose
The reason this document exists is to provide new pilots with a necessary means to advance their training and enjoy flight operations with more realism and most importantly, more fun. In the end it is a game and we all come together as a group to coordinate and enjoy the experience as aviators in a combat environment. It serves as a gateway to further possibilities in the airman’s career, the first step to flying on one's lonesome, getting to practice and become better at the art that is flight.
This document is not only for new students but already experienced aviators that have received further qualifications that can look back and refresh themselves of the types of procedure that are done to uphold the highest standard with recurrent training.
¶ Requirements
- Introductory Flight Screening (IFS) - All aviation candidates that enter TFJ must pass their IFS before any flight training is applied.
- ACRE - Knowing how to operate radios while using an aircraft is a crucial multi-tasking skill that ALL pilots need to have. It is critical to mission success that communication is done, without communication we are all in the blind.
- Radio Etiquette - For a clean, surgical level of precision, radio etiquette must be held over the radio.
¶ 1 - Aircraft Hierarchy
The structure and Chain of Command (CoC) within the task force and the aviation wing.
¶ 1.1 - Roles
- Air Mission Commander (AMC), the overall commander for all air operations in the specific mission. Tasks:
- Coordination between ground and air (on a strategic level).
- Coordination between flights or aircrafts.
- Overall responsibility for all aircraft in the Area of Operations (AO).
- Ground Force Commander (GFC), the overall commander for all ground operations, including permissions for landings and air strikes. Tasks:
- Approval of landing and air strike missions.
- Strategic command of ground forces.
- Flight Lead, the person responsible for the flight (group of aircraft). Their main focus is the navigation, communication and missions for the flight. Tasks:
- Communication with AMC and/or JTAC.
- Navigation of flight.
- Ensuring safety of flight.
- Pilot in Command (PiC), this is the individual assigned responsibility of the aircraft by the AMC. Tasks:
- Final command over anything happening to the aircraft, think of:
- Munitions loaded.
- Limiting threats to aircraft.
- Crew Chief (CE), for our purpose the individual assisting with landing, loading and fast roping of the aircraft. This individual will aim to increase situational awareness for the aircrew.
¶ 1.2 - Aircraft Types
Rotary
- H-6 Littlebird variants, JSFAW uses both MH and AH variants of the H-6 Littlebird. The Littlebird is a versatile aircraft useful for transport in difficult terrain, direct action and Close Air Support (CAS).
- H-60 Blackhawk variants, the MH-60M and MH-60M DAP (MLASS) are used to allow for troop transport (10 PAX) and/or CAS. It can also be used for direct action.
- MH-47 Chinook, a multi mission helicopter used for transport and cargo operations.
- AH-64 Apache, an attack helicopter used for suppression of enemy ground forces.
- Any civilian helicopter necessary to achieve mission objectives.
Fixed Wing
- F-35 Lightning, currently the newest fighter in the JSFAWs arsenal. It is a multi functional fighter able to perform CAS, SEAD and CAP.
- F-22 Raptor, with its main focus to perform CAP / Intercept it is also able to perform CAS.
- A-10 Warthog, an absolute tank when it comes to performing CAS. A slow aircraft with its only focus to provide ground support. Highly vulnerable to modern SAM/AA due to its slow airspeed.
- C-130 Hercules, highly versatile cargo aircraft. Capable of moving infantry, armor and even aviation equipment to foreign airstips (including combat made airfields).
- AC-130, an ground support variant of the c-130 where it carries up to 105mm Howitzer to provide heavy ground fire. Highly vulnerable to modern SAM/AA.
- A-400, european variant of the C-17. Highly capable transport fixed wing.
Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA)
- MQ-9 Reaper, drone deployed to increase SA for ground / air forces. And to provide precision strikes around the world.
¶ 2 - Radio Communications
¶ 2.1 - Setting up ACRE
To use a radio, you must have the correct keybindings in game.
ACRE (Advanced Combat Radio Environment) which must be found in the in-game controls. This training document will not cover the individual bindings.
Once you have setup all of your keybindings how you wish, you must go into your ACE menu and find the section named “Radios” if it is not present then you must find an arsenal and equip a radio into your inventory. From there back to the radio section in ACE Self Interaction menu, you will find your equipped radio’s. You can change the side in which you hear and which one is your main radio via PTT’s (Push to Talk).
Volume adjustment can be found if you “open” the radio and it comes up as a menu on your screen in which the interface is clickable and different buttons do different things. Knobs or switches like volume or channel are standard and they may differ from radio to radio.
¶ 2.2 - Radio Etiquette
Radio Etiquette is a major part in conducting safe and precise air operations. Always before speaking on a frequency listen for 5-10 seconds as when you connect to the frequency there could be people already speaking and interrupting that transmission can be detrimental to mission safety and security. Afterwards conduct a short radio check by stating; “[Frequency], [your callsign], radio check, over.” and await a response from a station that will either get you 5/5, or 1/5 which is unreadable.
You must use the term “Over” when ending your radio transmission but are awaiting a response. The term “Out” when you are finished with your transmission and are not awaiting a response and must not reply when “Out” is used in conversation.
¶ 2.3 - Callsigns
¶ Rotary Wing
- MH-6M - Poker
- AH-6M - Voodoo
- MH-60 - Whisky
- MH-60 MLASS (Transport) - Raider
- MH-60 MLASS (CAS) - Scalpel
- AH-64 Apache - Gunslinger
- Pavehawk CASEVAC - Guardian
- CH-47 Recovery - Voyager
¶ Fixed Wing
- F-35 - Lightning
- F22 - Raptor
- A-10 - Pumba
- AC-130 - Spooky
- C-130 - Hercules
- A400 - Titan
- AWACS - A, wah-ah-ah-ah!
¶ 3 - Basic Maneuvers (Rotary Wing)
¶ 3.1 - Takeoff
Takeoff is not so complicated compared to landing but once you go up you must come down. It can be perfected to an art just like landing, strive to make your takeoff’s more realistic and importantly effective and practical.
¶ 3.1a - Airspeed Over Altitude Takeoff
The “Airspeed Over Altitude Takeoff” entails that the pilot lifts the aircraft up a few feet and then initiates an acceleration forward at max power just to clear the ground, this is also known as “Airplane Takeoff” in its fixed wing like appearance.
¶ 3.1b - Altitude Over Airspeed Takeoff
The “Altitude Over Airspeed Takeoff” is the opposite of 7.1a. For it has the pilot raise altitude to clear (e.g power lines) before forward or backwards flight is able to be achieved.
¶ 3.1c - Reverse Takeoff
Reverse Takeoff is where the pilot has a very good understanding of his surroundings as your view is mainly out the front window and flying backwards is hazardous if done carelessly. This entails the pilot raises altitude to enter a low hover before dropping the tail slightly, careful as this could damage the tail if done too aggressively due to tail strike, you may clip objects such as rocks or fences too.
Raising collective and flying backwards before yawing the aircraft back into forward flight, this takes some distance but is very useful in confined valleys with a clear path behind the aircraft.
¶ 3.1d - How to Takeoff from a Slope
This assumes the aircraft is landed correctly with the nose pointing upslope as landing with nose pointing down is not good for control and how rotary wing aircraft perform.
The procedure requires that you push full forward cyclic and gently raise collective till the tail starts raising, careful as you don’t want too much to clip the front of the rotor disc on the terrain. When the tail starts going up you pull cyclic backwards and gain
altitude before starting a side-slip maneuver or reverse takeoff.
¶ 3.1e - How to Reverse Takeoff from a Slope
It does not differ all that much from the normal Takeoff from a Slope however, it is still a useful tool that must be known. As the aircraft's position is nose to the sky, you already have the lift vector pointing diagonally. This results in the terrain doing the heavy lifting for you and requiring the pilots to increase collective and start flying backwards.
¶ 3.1f - How to Takeoff in Formation
When taking off in formation coordination between the aircrafts in the flight is super important. The flight lead will announce their plan for takeoff before and each aircraft will ensure they understand and agree with the plan. In the case of the plan having everyone taking off at the same time (by default) the procedure is as follows:
Each aircraft will call “ready” when all PAX are aboard and the aircraft is ready for takeoff.
When all aircraft are ready, flight lead will:
Announce immediate takeoff: “1 is coming up”.
Announce a takeoff in 5 seconds: “Up in 5”.
Each aircraft will attempt to takeoff at the same time.
When airborne the flight lead will maintain 60 kts.
Each member of the flight will call “settled” when they are in formation.
When the last member of the flight is settled, they will call “good flight”. Announcing to everyone the formation is fully formed.
Flight lead will push to the pre-briefed airspeed. By default 80 kts.
The flight lead can also decide to have each aircraft take off either by an offset time or by announcing when each aircraft should takeoff.
¶ 3.2 - Banking
Banking is a core part of flight, rolling partially to one side to change the direction of flight of the aircraft. It is also the method to change the direction of flight at a high speed, visualize your path before starting and observe any and all hazards.
Roll your aircraft in the direction you want to turn, start rolling slow and smooth, ending at any angle between 30 and 35°. This will be the main thing that controls your final airspeed and elevation the most.
Use backwards cyclic to control how tight your turn is. If you feather the backwards cyclic, you'll end up in a very shallow bank, if you pull back hard, your turn will be much tighter.
Use collective to help correct your altitude. You'll pretty much want to constantly be holding one the other during a steep bank, and possibly feathering it during a light one.
Monitor what's in your path, and watch your virtual horizon. You want to watch your virtual horizon, and keep your nose where you want it. Obviously, if it's towards the sky, you'll decelerate. If it's towards the ground, you'll accelerate. You'll also want to apply more or less cyclic and collective as needed to get to the final flight path.
Roll back into a natural position, and keep flying. When you're turned in the direction you want to roll yourself into a natural position, while applying some forward cyclic to keep yourself moving forward.
¶ 3.3 - Hovering
Hovering is a basic and essential maneuver to learn. To hover, you want to approach a low speed (Below 15KIAS), then level yourself out. After this, pay attention to your virtual horizon and apply very light corrections to your helicopter to correct yourself. Achieving a perfect hover is something you should try striving for. Try to keep yourself in between 0-1 KIAS in any direction, without any change in elevation.
¶ 3.4 - Diving
A dive is a maneuver covered earlier in the document; however, this is the official section. This maneuver trades altitude for airspeed. Initiate the dive by pushing your cyclic forward towards the floor. Lower collective slightly to increase rate of descent.
When approaching the desired end altitude at the end of your descent, pull your nose up and increase collective for level flight.
¶ 3.5 - Climbing
A climb is a maneuver in which you gain altitude at a given rate. Generally it is performed by pulling aft on the cyclic and adding some collective input for a gentle ascent upwards, these may be adjusted to give you the vertical speed required for your maneuver. When reaching the altitude you require, start pushing the nose forward and return collective to the original cruising position.
¶ 3.6 - Landing
Landing is the last stage in a leg of a flight, it is the most important skill a rotary pilot must master in their career. Make sure when landing you pay close attention to your Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI), do not touch down with a lot of downward velocity, make sure to go slow and precise instead of being a cowboy and slamming it down injuring the troops on board or damaging the cargo and most importantly the aircraft. A pilot cannot call himself good if he screws up most of his landings.
¶ 3.6a - Approach
Raise the nose and decrease collective, depending on the rate you are traveling at this will require a decent amount of distance.
Travel the whole way to your LZ, keep a note that you are decreasing your potential velocity and it will leave you vulnerable if you decide to ditch out from the approach.
Perform the final dump of speed with an aggressive pitch up and decrease in collective to increase speed loss before hastily leveling out the aircraft OR smoothly placing it on the ground in a smooth fluid motion.
¶ 3.6b - Selecting an LZ
When selecting an LZ, this is ideally done even before the pilot steps foot into the aircraft, the LZ must be selected with a few factors in mind; the openness, the concealment/cover from enemy fire, the slope gradient whether it's flat or inclined. Make sure that an egress route is planned and available, know it before even starting your approach.
¶ 3.6c - Landing
When the skids/wheels touch the floor make sure you hold the collective down as far as it will go, if you land with light collective down input you may end up with a “float” where the aircraft is gently touching/grazing the ground or grass and ends up sliding with barely any weight on wheels. Make sure positive contact is made with the ground and the aircraft is secured in whatever process that applies. Get into the habit of dropping the collective when you touch the LZ.
¶ 3.6d - Vertical Landing
Vertical landing is when you are required to go downwards on the aircrafts lift vector. Possible hazards are in close proximity to the ground in a lateral movement however if approached vertically, they may pose little to no threat. Initiate an approach to a given LZ and instead of being in proximity to the ground, end your approach 10-15m (30-50ft) above your planned LZ. Then lower the collective and gently touchdown, keeping aware of your surroundings and listening to instructions from the JTAC to clear obstacles.
¶ 3.6e - Airplane/Rolling Landing
This involves the aircraft having some way to slide slightly or roll i.e wheels or skids. Since the base ArmA flight model is not very forgiving on contacting terrain while flying. You are to have very little velocity when touching down. Aircraft fitted with wheels have more rolling built into the flight model than aircraft with skids/rigid body. Start by approaching like normal but when reaching the 10knts airspeed band you can gently start decreasing collective to aim for touch down at 8knts, this is for skid aircraft. For aircraft mounted with wheels approach your LZ and ensure a strip of level ground is ahead, create a mental touchdown zone and be level wings when approaching your touchdown zone, land and rollout with collective placed to the floor to stop as fast as possible.
¶ 3.6f - Bleed Flare Landing
The bleed flare is a pilots best friend for speed and smoothness, when mastered it is the 90% use case for most pilots, There is a small point in each aircraft called “balanced state” where, when found will make sure the aircraft is decelerating as fast as possible with little and preferably no altitude gain or loss. With these in mind you can almost understand this maneuver as a standard and will know how much distance it covers at what speeds.
Initiate the Bleed Flare by raising the nose to about 10-15° Nose up.
Decrease collective all the way, as low as possible and with that modulate the nose’s pitch to achieve no altitude gain/loss.
NOTE: As you operate this maneuver, the speed will drop drastically as you fly a straight lateral path on the same altitude you started the maneuver at.
As speed is running down you will see that the aircraft's altitude will start to drop significantly and you need to either raise the nose even more. CAUTION: YOU MAY BE IN LOW STAGES OF FLIGHT AND MAY CAUSE CATASTROPHIC FAILURE TO FLIGHT!
When you have achieved your desired airspeed or have arrived at your planned location after scrubbing all the speed off, apply final corrections and initiate a landing from there keeping the momentum you are comfortable with to continue the landing.
In case of go-around/abort, Increase collective first, you will initiate a climb and then urgently afterwards push nose forward to regain controlled forward flight. From there engage in an escape maneuver away from the landing zone back to a holding point.
¶ 3.6g - J-Hook
The J-Hook is most popularized by ArmA III KOTH (King of The Hill) pilots most commonly viewed for their incredibly precise and skilled control of the aircraft (most commonly the little bird). Landing in tight spaces like court yards after scrubbing tons of speed and landing under pressure with bullets and fire landing all around. This maneuver is incredibly hard to master and takes a lot of time to understand the mechanics behind the smoothness and precision required.
Very common to the bleed flare in the sense that it is a high speed maneuver in the beginning and speed needs to be scrubbed away, it is almost identical in the beginning however about half way or 2/3 of the way through the bleed flare while speed is still high, initiate a bank and pull with the cyclic to the desired direction while maintaining or gaining some slight altitude to help with speed loss. You end up making the flight path look like the letter “J” from above upon completion (wheels touching on the ground).
¶ 3.6h - Slope Landing
Landing on slopes is a good skill to learn, landing on flat ground will be preferable however sometimes there is no other option but to land on a slope. All other practices stated previously apply here.
Shoot your approach normally to the designated landing zone and approach with caution and 1-5knts of airspeed when closing into the slope, be sure to gauge how close the slope gets to the main rotor as the body of the aircraft is below the rotor disc and the disc stretches out far and depending on the steepness of the slope it can rise up to the rotors and clip. Abort the LZ if this is the case.
Otherwise, if the clearance is tolerable, if the slope is very steep just hold a hover next to the terrain for the task to be completed i.e cargo offload or troop onload etc.
If the slope is not so severe you can attempt a pinnacle landing (covered later in the document in detail) OR landing facing up the slope or sideways in some cases where the gradient is not severe. Exercise extreme caution with these LZ’s, it is very easy to start sliding or drifting and it does take time to recover from these so only attempt if you are comfortable with this method of landing.
¶ 3.6i - Landing Blind
Landing blind is rarely used but must be practiced, in aircraft with very functional accurate cockpit displays and gauges this can be done easier. Approaches are done via GPS, this is for landing on landing zones with little to no visibility in inclement weather or dense fog as well as night conditions. Pilots need to have these key things:
- Good mental image of the landing zone, the surroundings and hazards/obstacles that can affect flight operations.
- Slow down and keep an eye on your navigation equipment like GPS and artificial horizon to guide you in.
- Pay attention to your instruments like; Altitude, Airspeed, HUD, Vertical Speed Indicator.
- Glancing outside your window to get as much situational awareness as possible to figure out what's going on.
- Being able to drop down to the ground with no visual references.
These few things should help as guidelines to navigating and landing safely in night time conditions. Reading these will do nothing if you do not practice them.
¶ 3.6 - Formation Landings
When landing in formations keep in mind the following:
- The flight lead determines the speed and altitude.
a. The other pilots can however change altitude as necessary to avoid risk to aircraft. - he Touch Down Point (TDP) determines where each aircraft will land.
- When on deck each callsign will call “dash number in formation on deck”.
¶ 4 - Formation Flight
Formation Flight is one thing that every JSFAW pilot must know how to do effectively, it requires the wingmen to have constant eyes on the flight leader and the flight leader must have his/her eyes forward to scan for weather, threats and other hazards for the cohesion of a formation flight.
¶ 3.1 - Rules
Positions and callsigns
In a scenario where the flight with four aircrafts has callsign “Whisky 1” each aircraft will be given the following callsigns:
- Flight Lead - Whisky 1-1
- Wingman - Whisky 1-2
- Wingman (2IC in formation) - Whisky 1-3
- Wingman - Whisky 1-4
Section 3.2 will explain the positions of the aircraft in formation.
When communicating in a flight channel (specific channel assigned to the flight only. The callsigns can be abbreviated to simply just the number in the formation or dash-number (Flight lead is dash 1, 2IC is dash 3)
Joining the formation (Rotary)
When taking off Flight Lead will hold 60 kts.
Each callsign will called “settled” when they are in formation.
Once the last callsign has called “settled” the same callsign will call “good flight”.
The good flight call will allow the flight lead to push to the assigned speed. In rotary aircraft that is 80 kts.
Example:
1: “Holding 60 kts”
2: “Settled”
3: “Settled”
4: “Settled, good flight”
1: “Roger good flight, pushing 80 kts”
¶ 3.2 - Formation Types
¶ 4 - Transport
The A2G training will go more in depth about transport comms and procedures.
¶ 4.1 - Procedures
The Following procedures may be changed as necessary depending on operational requirement.
- Each induvidual re-insterted will be brought to the Ranger Company position. Where they can then be send out in a controlled manner to their respective teams.
- The transport brief itself is the clearance to land from the JTAC. However depending on operations the AMC will require to give clearance as well.
- Ensure the PiC is familiar with the location of the cargo (for rearm & refuel of ground troops) and where re-inserts are spawned.
¶ 4.2 - Aircraft capabilities and limits
¶ 5 - Close Air Support
In the A2G training the procedures for CAS will be further explained. This section focusses on the air procedures.
¶ 5.1 - Aircraft Munitions
This table will only outline the most used munitition types.
| Type | Guidence | Danger Close |
|---|---|---|
| 7.62 Miniguns | Fixed | 100 meters |
| 30mm HEDP | Fixed | 200 meters |
| GAU-19 | Fixed | 150 meters |
| Hydra 70 | Fixed | 270 meters |
| Hydra 70 APKWS | Laser | 105 meters |
| AGM-114K (Hellfire) | Laser | 115 meters |
| AGM-114N (Hellfire) | Laser | 115 meters |
¶ 5.2 - Patterns for attack runs
¶ Racetrack Pattern
¶ Cloverleaf Pattern
¶ Figure-8 Pattern
¶ L-Shape Pattern
¶ 45° Offset Pattern
To Be Added
¶ Example of usage of Battle Point (BP)
¶ 5.3 - Keyhole
Keyhole is a method used to set up any kind of point without planning or using map markers. The JTAC will give the Pilot an Echo Point seen in the center triangle in the figure below. The Echo Point will be used to reference all other points. Then we use the Cardinal Directions (North, East, South, West) as A, B, C, D and the distances as the number. So for example 2 kilometers South of Echo point is C2 (Charlie 2).
We can also use headings as shown in the figure. The first 3 numbers being the heading and the last number being the distance.
