Helo pilots learn to fly at extreme altitudes - Army News, news from Iraq, - Army Times: "In Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains, whose highest peak hits 25,000 feet, the air is thin and helicopter engines lose efficiency. Landings and other maneuvers easily accomplished nearer to sea level become more perilous.
“I think many people by now have seen pictures of some the landings in Afghanistan, literally one wheel of a Black Hawk on the side of a mountain; only the ramp of a CH-47 touching down as it hovers in open space while troops are jumping off,” said Maj. Erick “Zeke” Sweet, the 10th CAB’s officer-in-charge of high altitude training here. “These things are not uncommon, particularly in the area of Afghanistan we’re going to.”
The Army is working to teach its aviators how to fly confidently in Afghanistan, emphasizing power management and wind current navigation. At the High Altitude Mountain Environmental Training here, and at the Colorado National Guard’s High Altitude Army Training Site in Gypsum, Colo., soldiers were getting comfortable in the Rockies, the continental U.S.’ closest cousin to the Hindu Kush."
