PLA’s helicopter test pilots in daily dice with death
Print Edition
YUAN Luogeng has been close to death many times since becoming a test pilot for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Every critical situation, be it landing with a missile, a part breaking off, or a rotor hit by a rocket, could have resulted in his helicopter crashing, with certain death for all onboard had he not handled the danger promptly and properly.
“You don’t have time for fear. You just act on instinct,” said Yuan, 50, who joined the PLA’s test-pilot battalion in 2007.
Thanks to the skill of Yuan and his peers, the battalion, founded in 2001, has survived more than 60 highly dangerous situations, with no helicopters destroyed and no one hurt.
“These test pilots are the closest to death in peacetime,” said Chen Fenghua, the battalion’s political commissar.
The battalion, the only one of its kind in the Army, tests military helicopters during their research and development stages.
To test a helicopter’s performance, pilots must push it to its limits to find its maximum speed, load and ceiling, as well as other useful data.
As a result, they often need to conduct test missions in extremely high or low temperatures, at very high altitudes and under other harsh conditions.
On average, each test pilot, who are all aged between 28 and 50, has encountered nearly eight dangerous situations during missions, battalion figures show.
In January 2010, Yuan and fellow pilot Yao Haizhong carried out a mission in Hailar in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The temperature was minus 43 degrees Celsius. “We only wore very thin cotton gloves. The control stick felt like a block of ice. My hands were numb, I was in so much pain. The mission lasted only 40 minutes, but it felt like hours,” said Yao, who now heads the battalion.
The battalion has completed all kinds of test missions for more than 20 new China-designed helicopters, setting dozens of records, including a world record for a high-altitude flight, Chen said.
Xu Guolin, a former battalion chief, said: “The Army needs helicopters, to ensure it is highly mobile and flexible in offense and defense. The battalion supports the development of all helicopter models every step of the way.”
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