If we mobilize, I want to know what I'm doing. The work is important. If we don't do it right, the helo won't fly. And nobody cares what I am. All that counts is that I'm willing to get in there and work.
Nothing is easy with aerial minesweeping.
In an exercise where dummy mines are sown into the sea bottom or a real world requirement like the 1990 mining of the Persian Gulf in Desert Shield and Desert Storm , the demanding schedule is much the same. Pilots fly arrow-straight tracks back and forth, often for miles at a time, so that every inch of a suspected field can be accounted for. But the helicopter is often buffeted by wind and by the motions of the sled in the waves below. Towing a sled on a straight path in these conditions forces the pilot to put the helicopter through all kinds of angle and attitude contortions. Squadron pilots and crew do much of their training on multimillion dollar simulators.