Pave Low. The term itself generates an image: a dark, wispy night;
a low, pulsating rumble approaching from the distance. The rumble
becomes a presence, a large helicopter that settles onto the ground
amidst the deep darkness. Earnest men of determination spew forth
from it. Heavily armed, they quickly set up to collect
intelligence, kill enemy troops, rescue downed or isolated friendly
personnel, or otherwise conduct a direct action mission. Mission
complete, they just as quickly reassemble, reboard the aircraft,
and then disappear into the consuming darkness. It is a powerful
image-a conjure, if you will-that strikes fear into any enemy of
the United States. But the conjure is real. It is a helicopter
called the MH-53J/M. That machine is the end result of the
evolution of state-of-the-art avionics, communication, and
navigation equipment crewed by highly motivated, enthusiastic, and
smart young operators well steeped in the principles, heritage, and
credo of special operations. It is the classic combination of men
and machine. Those aircraft and Airmen were assigned to the US Air
Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), "America's specialized
airpower . . . a step ahead in a changing world, delivering special
operations power anytime, anywhere."1 AFSOC controls a mixed fleet
of both rotaryand fixed-wing aircraft to facilitate the fulfillment
of that mission. However, the single aircraft that, in its day, has
best epitomized that role is the Pave Low helicopter. It, perhaps
more than any other aircraft, allowed the AFSOC to realize its
purpose. But it was not always so. The aircraft themselves were
revolutionary combinations of new, more powerful turbine engines
with rotarywing aircraft to produce vastly increased lifting power.
Conceptualized, built, and designated for simpler missions, they
were immediately swept up into the long war in Southeast Asia.
There they proved the efficacy of the aircraft for dangerous rescue
missions, for the initiation of a whole new generation of
developing avionics and navigation technology, for providing
challenging direct support to small special forces teams and
indigenous forces inserted behind enemy lines, and for a myriad of
other things that heavy-lift helicopters could be assigned to do.
In accomplishing all of that, they also trained a whole generation
of men who learned of combat along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos
and at other places like Quang Tri, South Vietnam; Son Tay, North
Vietnam; and Koh Tang Island, Cambodia. After that conflict, those
aircraft and men were returned to peacetime locations and duties,
and much was forgotten of those dangerous times and missions.
However, a cadre of dedicated combat aviators and commanders felt
that the aircraft and community of Airmen had much more to give.
Foreseeing an ever-dangerous world, they harnessed those aircraft
to a series of evolving new technologies that vastly improved the
aircraft by giving them the ability to traverse airspace in any
weather conditions, day and night, and to avoid enemy threats. That
concept was validated in operations in Panama, Kuwait, Iraq,
Serbia, Afghanistan, and many more smaller and quieter operations
in between. The men and aircraft also showed the larger utilitarian
value of the aircraft as, over the years, they were called out many
times to provide natural disaster and humanitarian relief from
Africa to New Orleans, Louisiana.
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