NOVO SELO TRAINING AREA, Bulgaria-- U.S. Army Soldiers from the 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment participated in aerial gunnery table qualifications in Novo Selo Training Area, Bulgaria, August 27th and 28th, 2019.
Twenty crew chiefs and four pilots in command participated in the qualification ranges. With this qualification, the service members are able to go on mission with both an M240B machine gun for ground fire and an M240H machine gun attached to the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter for aerial engagement.
In order to qualify, the Soldiers must be able to score a 70% or higher in a target engagement area while shooting the M240H from a flying helicopter. The training covered tables one through six and featured day and night qualification ranges.
While the conditions to qualify are based on accuracy of bullets down range onto a target, Sgt. Dylan Hauck, the standardization instructor for the 3-1 AHB, explained that communication is also a key factor during this training.
“Communication between the crew chiefs and the pilot is very important. In a real life scenario, the pilots may see a target and they have to hand that over to the crew chiefs,” Hauck said. “They need to be sure that they are talking about the same thing prior to engaging the target. An important part of the training is building crew coordination.”