“Twenty kilometers east of Saser entry point,” the navigator replied after consulting his charts the old fashioned way.
“Okay then. Go time!” the pilot said to his crew.
He changed radio frequencies:
“Switchblade-One to all Switchblade elements, align your approach!”
The two Mig-29s providing top cover continued on their path but the two An-32s began their steep spiraling descent. So far they had been high enough to stay out of the range of man portable anti-air weapons. That would now change…
“Keep your hand on those flares…” the pilot suggested to his co-pilot as they watched the mountains around them becoming larger.
“I got my hand right on the button!”
The two transport aircraft were making what was in effect the Afghan-Tactical-Approach. It was a technique used by the soviet pilots during their war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s when the threat from Stinger missiles fired by the Mujahedeen against soviet transport aircraft near their bases was very high.
The idea was that arriving or departing aircraft would approach the airbase from high enough altitude to be safe from these missiles. Once over the airbase, they entered a spiraling descent within the security zone around the airbase while dispensing flares to ward off missile threats. This tactic worked. Within limits.
“Approaching eighteen-thousand feet!” the co-pilot said.
“Roger. Leveling!” the pilot replied.
He stabilized the aircraft and spotted Saser just as the aircraft recovered from the spiral descent.
“Approaching Saser! Visual acquisition and signal flares sighted! Go Red!” the pilot shouted.
The co-pilot pressed the button that opened the cargo doors in the back where two airmen were waiting for the order to start pushing the cargo out. The lights next to them on the ramp now went red and they began pushing the equipment to the edge of the cargo-hold…
“Drop on my mark! Three! Two! One! Go Green!” the pilot ordered.
The two airmen saw the light switch turn green and began pushing the cargo. The pallets slid out the back of the aircraft ramp and deployed under large white parachutes. Several seconds later they were clear and the second An-32 was making its approach behind them.
The flight-crew anxiously scanned the peaks around them as their aircraft flew down the valley. They could see no activity but that meant nothing. They were just waiting for the all-clear from the loadmaster in the cargo hold…
“We are clean! All cargo deployed under open canopies!” the loadmaster’s voice came on the radio. The pilot turned to his right:
“Close the cargo doors! And launch a flare barrage as we pull out!”
While the co-pilot did this, the pilot was already pushing the throttle for both engines forward and the engines groaned under the strain. The aircraft picked up speed…
Both aircraft were now climbing out of Saser, dropping flares all the way until they were well on their way to the southwest. When the aircraft had gone beyond thirty-thousand feet, they leveled out and reduced power.
“I wouldn’t want to do that very often!” the navigator said over the cockpit intercom.
“Get used to it, old boy! We will be doing a lot more of those in the days to come,” the pilot said as he loosened his tight grip on the controls…
Wing-Commander Dutt saw a utility-vehicle racing down the tarmac from the base operations center. He and his pilots were standing next to their helicopters on the tarmac. There were two LCHs, a single Dhruv and two Mi-17 helicopters parked nearby with pilots in their flight-suits waiting for the all-clear from Dutt.
The other four LCHs under his command were parked further away under camouflaged netting where they were being assembled after having arrived recently. His entire force of helicopters was in now in the area of operations…
The rumble of the jeep’s engine became louder.
Dutt turned to see the base commander for Leh jump of the front seat. Dutt walked over to him.
“Dutt, recovery teams at Saser report ninety-percent on all equipment dropped to them by the boys from the Himalayan-Eagles. They had a few failed canopies but otherwise are good to go,” the base-commander said.
“So we are good to deploy?” Dutt asked.
“Right away! Go!”
“Yes sir!” Dutt said and saluted. He then turned to his pilots and gave them a thumbs-up. All of them began running over to their helicopters.
A couple minutes later the rotor blades of the first LCH began to rotate slowly as Dutt and his WSO activated other instruments. No weapons other than pod mounted FFARs and cannon rounds were being carried on the attack helicopters. But the Mi-17s were taking live missile rounds in their cargo hold to FARP-Saser and a ground convoy via Shyok was doing the bulk of that resupply.
Dutt’s LCH lifted off the tarmac at Leh under its own power and was followed by his wingman. Behind them the two Mi-17s and one Dhruv SAR helicopter also began climbing out of Leh to begin their flight to the highest battlefield on earth.
The massive blades of the Mi-26 heavy-transport helicopter whipped through the thin mountain air of Sikkim as two of the large helicopters made their way through the valleys and headed north. These heavy-duty birds from the No. 126 ‘Featherweights’ Helicopter Flight were slow moving and not nearly maneuverable enough. But the flight-crews were not worried. The skies over Sikkim were secure. Above them, three Mirage-2000s were patrolling over northern Sikkim.
No. They had other things on their minds.
The vibration inside the cockpits of the two Mi-26 was very high. The engines were groaning at full power in the high-altitudes and the pilots could almost count every single “whoop” of the massive blades as they passed over the cockpit due to the relatively low RPM on the Mi-26. The pilots were a bit uneasy about enemy action but otherwise accustomed to the dangers.
They were flying in the Yumthang valley at an altitude of ten-thousand feet above sea-level.
And they were carrying a relatively heavy payload.
They were below the mountain peaks on either side of the valley, and that left little margin for error and maneuver. There was little that the Mi-26 crews could do to protect themselves against an enemy threat out here.
“Three minutes out people!” the navigator shouted over the background noise. Behind the two pilots, the flight-engineer was carefully monitoring the readings on both D-136 engines for signs of danger. At these altitudes, engine failure could mean instant loss of aircraft…
“Feather-One to — Two! Three minutes to Dee-Zee! Over,” the pilot said into his headset speaker and strained his neck to the left out of the cockpit glass.
He saw the other Mi-26 one kilometer to their eight-position.
“Roger! Feather-Two copies!”
The pilot then looked back down the cavernous interior of his helicopter to see the loadmaster sitting near the opening on the floor from where he kept an eye on the under-slung cargo.
The pilot brought up three fingers and the sergeant nodded.
“One minute out! Scanning for visual identification!” the co-pilot shouted.
This time both crew-members began looking through the cockpit glass up front.
“I have visual! Green smoke at eleven!” the pilot said.
“Feather-One to — Two. Confirmed green smoke at primary Dee-Zee. We are inbound! Out!”
The loadmaster sergeant in the cabin behind was already on his knees and leaning over the small opening on the floor to see the under-slung cargo buffeting in the wind as the helicopter went into hover…