Technology for war helps save lives in New Orleans

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Elaine Mayo
  • Air Force Reserve Recruiting Service Public Affairs
JACKSON, Miss. (AFPN) --  Night-time flying through the darkened, flooded streets of New Orleans presented unique challenges to rescuers from the 920th Rescue Wing at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla.

The HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter crews constantly had to look out for power lines, buildings and other rescue aircraft in the area, not always easily recognizable in the night sky.

To allow them to work throughout the night while other rescue teams could not Air Force Reserve Command Airmen used a variety of technology, such as night-vision devices, forward-looking infrared radar and electronically linked mission overlay.

“A lot of our work was at night,” said Maj. Robert Haston, a 920th RQW pilot who assisted in the rescue of 184 people in a 13-hour workday.

Between Aug. 30 and Sept. 16, Reserve crews rescued 1,043 people. More than one third of the rescue sorties were flown after dark.

“The first night, all but 20 of my (184) rescues were picked up at night,” Major Haston said.

He said he could not have rescued that many without the use of his night-vision devices.

Night-vision devices include night-vision goggles, a helmet mounting system and a battery pack. The devices were developed to give warfighters the advantage of being able to see in the dark.

The goggle tubes contain 7 million fiber optic sensors that amplify light 30,000 times. The green images seen through the goggles are really 7 million circles amplified with light to form an image.

“If the moon is up, you can see more,” said Lt. Col. Rob Ament, 920th RQW director of operations. “If it’s pitch black out or if you are in a cave, you wouldn’t be able to see because the goggles amplify existing light only.”

“Night goggles give you about 20/20 vision, and you see grainy, green images,” Major Haston said.

“In some cases, the fire and smoke (from burning buildings) made it easier to see because the smoke created a ceiling with the fire,” he said. “It was like shining a flashlight in a dark room.”

Colonel Ament said many military pilots have night-vision goggle capability.

“What sets us apart is the forward-looking infrared radar system,” he said.

The infrared system picks up the hot spots or heat sources on a terrain and transmits those images to a screen in the cockpit.

A sensor is mounted on the front of the helicopter and it scans the terrain, filtering and amplifying images in its path. It sends them to a screen in the cockpit, where the images appear as heat sources.

“We use both FLIR and the goggles … when the night goggles don’t give us a clear image, FLIR does and vice versa,” Colonel Ament said.

“FLIR will show wires (on a telephone pole),” he said. “NVDs will only show the stanchions that hold the wires, so you have to look inside at the screen and outside through your goggles constantly.”

After Sept. 8 there were fewer people to be rescued, but the ones who were there were more challenging to find. While on the ground, pararescuemen asked the New Orleans holdouts if they knew of anyone needing help.

Armed with these leads and others from families and friends, the airborne rescuers worked every lead they got to save more lives.

“We followed leads from phone calls, e-mails and Web sites,” Colonel Ament said.

Another aid in the rescue operations was the electronically linked mission overlay system. The system is tied into the Global Positioning System on the aircraft and can give coordinates for street addresses, said Tech. Sgt. William Gulledge, a crew chief from the 943rd Rescue Group at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.

StreetSmart, a software package that contains street addresses, was loaded into the overlay system and used to get coordinates.

“It gives us a moving map display,” Colonel Ament said. Rescue crews are able to go street-by-street to a specific address.

For one rescue, it allowed the crew to fly directly to a house and rescue a 40-year-old handicapped man who had been trapped in his flooded house for 10 days.

“We took the house address given to us and plugged it into StreetSmart,” said Tech. Sgt. Andrew Canfield, a pararescueman from the 304th Rescue Squadron at Portland International Airport, Ore. “We were able to fly directly to the house.” (Courtesy of AFRC News Service)