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U.S. Army Maj. Nicholas Sagorsky, an AH-64 Apache Aviator and operations officer assigned to 2nd Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, speaks on his role during aerial gunnery at Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii from February 23, 2026. Flight crews conduct gunnery tables which range from dry-fire, individual skills to live-fire, collective combat scenarios. An aerial gunnery is a semi annual requirement necessary to maintain proficiency of aircrews, and allows the unit to build a more reliable combat power. (U.S. Army video by Sgt. Olivia Cowart)
~Transcript~
00;00;01;00 - 00;00;05;07
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I'm Maj. Sagorsky. I'm the operations officer for 2-6 ACS, which is air cavalry squadron.
00;00;05;07 - 00;00;26;15
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So for nobody who knows kind of what an aerial gunnery is, especially for Apaches, it's pretty much our crew qualification tables. And what that means is two guys will go out and take a helicopter, and for the semiannual requirement, twice every year, they'll go take that helicopter and go and pull munitions out on a range. And that's basically the same thing as an M4 range for the helicopter.
00;00;26;15 - 00;00;36;09
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And then we will build off of that table six and we'll go to a table nine, which we add more helicopters typically 2 to 4. And then you can go on sequentially from there.
00;00;36;12 - 00;00;59;13
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aerial gunnery goes beyond just the pilots. And while that is the face of a gunnery, the real backbone of any type of aviation operation is the logistics and the maintenance enterprise. So when we talk about the 15 Yankees, the guys who are fixing our munitions and loading the munitions and our 92 foxes who are giving us gas every 25 minutes because we're constantly in the air.
00;00;59;13 - 00;01;25;21
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And our 15 Romeos, Papa Golfs, Bravos deltas are really, you know, critical to how we do this. Because without the sustainability that they provide, we would never get to fire the munitions in the air. And it goes even beyond that. The staff planning that goes on from the squadron to the division level, it affords us this opportunity to come out here and qualify every six months, which is monumental for our organization.
00;01;25;23 - 00;01;43;15
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we have a requirement in order to do this twice a year. And that helps maintain proficiency for the air crews. That allows us to build a more reliable combat power in order to fight our nation's wars. Without this gunnery, we would have a severe lapse in skills that our aviators within be displaying in combat.
00;01;43;15 - 00;01;49;28
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So without them being able to do that, they would be at a severe disadvantage the next time they face the enemy.
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I think I'm just proud of the team. So right now we are, you know, split three different ways as an organization. Yet we can still come out here, qualify almost completely the entire squadron through table nine. And we're still leaving early. We met mission success in other areas for logistics reasons.
00;02;07;28 - 00;02;29;24
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And then, you know, we've set conditions for future operations. And not only that, we're coming out of this gunnery at an accelerated pace into the next training glide slope. So I'm very proud of the team as a whole. There's not really one section that I think, like picked up and ran away with it. I think everybody just got together arm in arm and just went across the line of LD, and I think that was incredibly awesome.
| Date Taken: | 02.23.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 09.02.2026 22:45 |
| Category: | Interviews |
| Video ID: | 1021652 |
| VIRIN: | 260223-A-XD912-4367 |
| Filename: | DOD_111947088 |
| Length: | 00:02:30 |
| Location: | US |
| Downloads: | 0 |
| High-Res. Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 25th CAB Maj. Nicholas Sagorsky on Aerial Gunnery Qualifications, by SGT Olivia Cowart, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
