Fire from above: 3-4 AHB tests door gunners

Photo By Sgt. Jonathan Thibault | Pfc. Nicolas Pontarelli, UH-60 Black Hawk crew chief, 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, fires rounds at targets on the ground during an aerial door gunnery range at Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site March 10, 2015.  

PINON CANYON MANEUVER SITE, CO, UNITED STATES

03.10.2015

Story by Sgt. Jonathan Thibault 

4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs

PIÑON CANYON MANEUVER SITE, Colo. - White smoke from the hot end of a barrel reflected off an aircrew member's helmet visor during an aerial door gunnery range at Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site.

The 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, held its first aircrew door gunnery range March 10, 2015.

"We are trying to qualify all of our door gunners as part of a yearly qualification," said 1st Lt. Kenneth Wigboldy, aerial door gunnery officer in charge, 3rd AHB. "We ran them through six different weapon iterations to familiarize them with the standards of the qualification. In the sixth and final iteration, they are graded. They have to qualify in a day and night range in order to be fully qualified."

The gunnery is not a regular weapons range because it contains scenario training, Wigboldy noted.

"Graders and pilots have scripts for each gunner qualifying," he said. "Graders and pilots tell the gunner the type of threat, who is friendly and who is the enemy. It is up to the gunner to properly identify the threat, avoid friendly forces and eliminate enemy targets. This helps the gunners improve and train their situational awareness."

The gunnery showed how the CAB's capabilities go beyond its ability to sling-load, medevac and transport Soldiers around the battlefield, said Wigboldy.

"We want our aircrews to be trained beyond the transport platform that they are used to," he said. "We want to make them aware that the Black Hawk can be a very persuasive attack platform type of aircraft with properly trained aircrews. These skills they learn during the gunnery will pay dividends in future deployments of the CAB."

Sgt. Jacob Martin, 3rd AHB master gunner, has been a crew chief and door gunner for six years.

"We give the qualifiers academic instruction in the classroom before they ever touch the weapon they will be qualifying with," said Martin. "Next step is shooting the weapon from the ground to familiarize them with how the weapon fires. Then they use a digital simulator to see how the weapon fires when flying through the air. Finally, they go through the tables and qualify during the aerial door gunnery."

Martin said a lot of door gunner training is needed because of how the weapons fire while the helicopter is maneuvering.

"Due to the disrupted air created by the helicopter blades, the weapon's cone of fire and dispersion changes," said Martin. "Because of this, point targets become more difficult so a gunner must train and adjust how they fire to land ammunition on their targets."

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Nathaniel Burklow, UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, 3rd AHB, said taking part in the aerial door gunnery range helps familiarize him with the weapons used on his aircraft.

"We wanted to get an understanding of the difficulty that the crew chiefs have to go through to accurately shoot the weapon's system from the aircraft," said Burklow. "It was a good experience and allows us to understand how to assist our aircrews in times when they need to fire the weapon to best eliminate any threats to our aircraft."

• Date Taken: 03.10.2015
• Date Posted: 03.30.2015 12:25
• Story ID: 158557
• Location: PINON CANYON MANEUVER SITE, CO, US