Photo By Staff Sgt. Julie Wallace-Myles | Chief Warrant Officer 2 Thomas Gorgeny, an AH-64 Apache pilot, provides the talk through method of instruction to the members of 3d Cavalry Regiment and Fort Hood Fire Station 3 on how to properly extract a pilot in the event of a downed aircraft, he explains ways in which the cabin can be accessed and the different positions a pilot may be in the cockpit during an aerial reaction force training at Hood Army Airfield, Texas. June 1. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Julie Wallace Myles, 1st ACB PAO, 1st Cav. Div. (released)
FORT HOOD, TX, UNITED STATES
06.01.2016
Story by Capt. Kat Kaliski
1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs
FORT HOOD, Texas -- Members of 1st Air Cavalry Brigade along members of Fort Hood’s Fire Station 3 were called upon to train the 3d Cavalry Regiment on responding to a downed helicopter in preparation for the regiment’s upcoming deployment.
The goal of the training is to prepare the Soldiers for “all the things that could happen with a downed aircraft,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Philip Learn, the Aviation Mission Survivability Officer for 1st Air Cav Brigade, who spearheaded the training.
The group of 3d Cav. Regt. Soldiers are infantry mortar men who will be acting as the Aerial Reaction Force in theatre. Their role will be first responders and security at crash sites.
“If the scene is too dangerous, 3d Cav. Regt. may be the only rescue team on the site,” Learn said.
The firemen and 1st Air Cav. Soldiers covered such issues as: extraction, handling hazardous material, leaking fuel, first aid, spinal straps for stability and even mortuary affairs, to name a few.
This training is not uncommon for 1st Air Cav who routinely helps non-aviation units prepare for aerial reaction.
“We team with the firefighters about every 6 months for aerial reaction training,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Thomas Gorgeny, an Apache pilot for 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 22th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cav. Bde.
The brigade trains an array of Soldiers, to include members of the Air Force.
“I love showing my aircraft and showing them something they don’t often see,” Said Gorgeny.
The aviators demonstrated how the pilots could potentially be positioned by taking the infantry men on the flight line and mimicking how they might find crews in an Apache, Blackhawk or Chinook aircraft and showed the Soldiers what would need to be done to quickly to successfully recover them.
The brigade made the training as thorough and as real as possible, according to Lean and his team.
As 3d Cav. Regt. prepares to make its way into combat, the pilots of 1st Air Cav. took strategic and methodical measures to ensure that their fellow Soldiers were prepared for their mission.
