text: Plans, Organization, Conduct, and Threat
  TERMINAL GUIDANCE BY SUPPORTED UNITS
  2-47. Terminal guidance refers to information and minimal guidance given to pilots by anyone in a
  ground unit other than a qualified pathfinder. Selected personnel normally furnish terminal guidance within
  the supported unit. To do so, they use both organic and improvised equipment.
  2-48. When pathfinders accompany ground units, aviation unit SOP may direct that terminal guidance
  personnel augment pathfinder elements.
  2-49. Terminal guidance personnel should know the following:
  y The supporting aviation unit SOP.
  y How to operate electronic and visual navigation aids to help aircraft find DZs or LZs.
  y To provide essential information through GTA radio to guide and control Army aircraft.
  y To reconnoiter and recommend suitable DZs or LZs.
  y To determine, recommend, or perform ground-clearing pioneer work to prepare DZs or LZs.
  SECTION IV. HIGH-THREAT ENVIRONMENT
  The threat comes in many forms. To ensure mission success, aviation and ground commanders must consider
  all possibilities. They must consider a threat anything that could disrupt or delay the mission, or that could
  otherwise cause the mission to fail.
  CONTROL AND NAVIGATION
  2-50. Pathfinders have limited voice control of aircraft. Thus, the ground unit commander and the air
  mission commander must coordinate closely. Navigation presents special problems—aviators must fly low
  to avoid detection. In a high-threat environment, critical factors include time, distance, routes, and tactical
  instruments.
  2-51. For example, two pathfinders with beacons could emplace along a route in advance of the initial
  flight. They provide pilots with air control points. If the pilot needs the beacon turned on due to
  navigational error, he can transmit a prearranged signal or code word.
  2-52. Pathfinders might discover a threat, such as an antiaircraft weapon, along the primary route. If so,
  they can alert pilots by prearranged code word or signal to change to an alternate route.
  TACTICAL INSTRUMENT FLIGHTS
  2-53. Flying under instrument meteorological conditions poses special problems in a high-threat
  environment. This threat overrides the controlled instrument flight rules in the aviation-series manuals. It
  forces aircraft to fly at altitudes well below the minimums for normal instrument flight.
  2-54. Weather variances can create a tactical emergency. If so, the commander might have to use
  aviation assets under instrument conditions and well below the altitudes specified by standard instrument
  flight rules. The commander will only send aircraft on a mission in a high-threat environment under these
  conditions when the situation meets the following criteria:
  y The aviation and ground commanders cannot postpone the mission to wait for better weather.
  y The pathfinders must conduct the mission in a high-threat environment.
  y Low visibility en route precludes nap-of-the-earth flight.
  2-55. Aviation and ground commanders employ tactical instrument flight whenever weather or time and
  distance considerations prevent mission completion in other flight modes. Therefore, they must often use
  tactical instrument flight during round-the-clock operations on the high-threat battlefield. Aircrews and
  pathfinders must rehearse tactical instrument flight until they achieve proficiency.