the Taliban spring offensive. On the final mission, air assaulted all four maneuver “we Lieutenant Colonel Benchoff recounted. companies,” Chinook Air Assaults Continue in 2011 In addition to providing support to 2d BCT, 101st CAB Chinook pilots and crews also flew air assaults in October 2010 with 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3d BCT, 101st Airborne Division into the villages of Mushan, Zangabad, and Taluqan in the Horn of Panjway’i, 30 miles southwest of Kandahar City. Chinooks also conducted deliberate and hasty air assault missions in support of Special Operations Forces in RC-South. During one 30 day period, seven Chinooks were allocated every night for Special Operations missions. The new F model Chinooks, with moving map displays, digital advanced flight control system hover modes, common avionics architecture systems, and hovering symbology to see through dust, were nearly comparable, performance-wise, to the MH-47G models flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR). the end, we were providing multiple aircraft and aircrews for “In multiple missions every Captain Christopher Getter, B Company, 6-101 CAB, night,” commander, later wrote. Captain Getter also estimated that the 21-aircraft Chinook team at Kandahar conducted at least 250 air assaults during its deployment in RC-South. Colonel William Gayler, commander of the 101st CAB, calculated that overall the brigade flew a combined total of 363 air assaults while deployed in Afghanistan. In a 2012 interview, Gayler described how his pilots often flew what he called 3D maneuvering flight patterns, constantly changing heading, altitude, and air speed, thereby causing Taliban gunners to continually adjust for height estimates, lead angles,
the Taliban spring offensive. On the final mission, “we air assaulted all four maneuver companies,” Lieutenant Colonel Benchoff recounted. Chinook Air Assaults Continue in 2011 In addition to providing support to 2d BCT, 101st CAB Chinook pilots and crews also flew air assaults in October 2010 with 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3d BCT, 101st Airborne Division into the villages of Mushan, Zangabad, and Taluqan in the Horn of Panjway’i, 30 miles southwest of Kandahar City. Chinooks also conducted deliberate and hasty air assault missions in support of Special Operations Forces in RC-South. During one 30 day period, seven Chinooks were allocated every night for Special Operations missions. The new F model Chinooks, with moving map displays, digital advanced flight control system hover modes, common avionics architecture systems, and hovering symbology to see through dust, were nearly comparable, performance-wise, to the MH-47G models flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR). “In the end, we were providing multiple aircraft and aircrews for multiple missions every night,” Captain Christopher Getter, B Company, 6-101 CAB, commander, later wrote. Captain Getter also estimated that the 21-aircraft Chinook team at Kandahar conducted at least 250 air assaults during its deployment in RC-South. Colonel William Gayler, commander of the 101st CAB, calculated that overall the brigade flew a combined total of 363 air assaults while deployed in Afghanistan. In a 2012 interview, Gayler described how his pilots often flew what he called 3D maneuvering flight patterns, constantly changing heading, altitude, and air speed, thereby causing Taliban gunners to continually adjust for height estimates, lead angles,
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