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And no you are not allowed to see her face as all the other veteran combat Apache pilots on personal security grounds. You can view a masked photo tho at the link below.....
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1611554.ece
FOR a spunky young commando, Charlotte was too good to be true.
A good-looking blonde AND she flew the world's meanest killing machine.
She caused quite a stir when she arrived at Camp Bastion, the British forces HQ in Helmand province.
A captain in her mid-20s, Charlotte came straight out of Sandhurst to be streamlined on to the Apache programme as one of the Army Air Corps' most promising high-fliers.
Heores ... Charlotte, Darwin, Nick and FOG relax between sorties
A lot of old hands didn't think a woman would be up to fighting an Apache - and I was one of them.
It wasn't a sexist thing - we didn't think she'd be able to take the immense physical pressure.
She proved us completely wrong.
As one of five new pilots for 656 Squadron's second Afghan tour, practically every week this incredible woman notched up another record.
Kill
Not only was she the first woman ever to fly a British Apache, but since this was her first tour of duty, she was also now the first to do so on operations. A few days into the tour, she became the first British woman to kill in an Apache.
But Charlotte kept her most vital first until nearly the end of the tour.
It was then that she saved my life, and maybe seven others' lives, proving her place among the Corps' elite aviators in the thick of the worst battle we'd ever fought.
It came during our attempt to rescue mortally wounded marine Lance Corporal Mathew Ford from Taliban stronghold Jugroom Fort.
While Billy, Geordie, Carl and I landed our two Apaches inside the fort with two marines strapped on the wings of each, it was Charlotte and a second Apache crew's job to protect us from above.
The fight was four hours old by then. Hundreds of Taliban were crawling all over the place, reinforcing it from many miles away so the crews had their work cut out for them.
At one stage, her co-pilot Darwin flew them low over my left shoulder while Charlotte slapped five consecutive 20-round cannon bursts into a big group of Taliban trying to get to us from a treeline barely 200 metres to our north-east.
Keep pulling that trigger, Charlotte.
Once she'd run out of cannon rounds, then came an ear-piercing screech and the mighty flash of an explosion as she piled a Hellfire missile into the treeline too. A quarter of a second later, the missile's pressure wave passed through my clothing and I heard the sound of branches splitting and plummeting to the ground. A second Hellfire closely followed the first.
She was there for us too when we were at our most vulnerable, finally taking off in a dust cloud from the fort with Mathew tied on to our aircraft's foot well.
After 20 agonising seconds of blindness, we burst out of the gloom straight into blinding sunshine and a crystal blue sky. As we soared towards the hill on the other side of the river, Charlotte's Apache was waiting for us there, hovering 200ft above the marines' firebase.
As she spotted us, two more Hellfires shot off her rails with their a***s on fire and buried themselves deep into the eastern treeline.
Inside story ... Apache
Switching instantly to rockets, she then let rip on the Taliban in the fort with her 16 Flechette and eight high explosive rockets. They came out in pairs, left ahead of right - left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right - each leaving a vivid jet of flame in their wake. It was the biggest rocket launch I'd ever seen and at the end of it angry clouds of propellant vapour shrouded her entire aircraft.
By the time she and the other Apache's gunner Nick were finished, we were safely out of enemy range.
If it wasn't for Charlotte's sharp-shooting, I doubt any of us would have got out of there.
Along with Nick, Darwin and FOG, Charlotte flew three consecutive sorties that day.
It meant they'd been in the cockpits for more than 11 hours without once getting out, not even for so much as a p**s. A Herculean effort.
On the flight back to base, the four Apaches exchanged ammo states over the aircraft's air-to-air text service.
Rockets
All of us had started off with the usual "Load Charlie" - 300 rounds of 30mm cannon, 24 rockets and four Hellfire missiles.
Our Apache had 16 rockets still in the tubes, but we were out of Hellfire and only had 80 cannon rounds left. Two other crews were running equally low.
But Charlotte and Darwin's text just read: WINCHESTER. It was the code for exhausting your entire weapon supply. It dates from the First World War. When biplane pilots exhausted their machine guns, they reached for their Repeaters.
Going Winchester is heavily frowned on. Ammunition is our lifeblood and has to be carefully rationed. Use it all up in one go and you have nothing left to fight with.
Charlotte had run dry in the last seconds of our extraction. She had executed her fire plan to perfection - and become the first British Apache flier ever to go Winchester. She'd notched up a second record at the same time - the fastest rate of fire on any British Apache sortie - £426,353.36 of ammunition in just six minutes.
She still holds that record today, and I can't see it ever being beaten.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1611554.ece#ixzz0bgtytTKq
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1611554.ece
FOR a spunky young commando, Charlotte was too good to be true.
A good-looking blonde AND she flew the world's meanest killing machine.
She caused quite a stir when she arrived at Camp Bastion, the British forces HQ in Helmand province.
A captain in her mid-20s, Charlotte came straight out of Sandhurst to be streamlined on to the Apache programme as one of the Army Air Corps' most promising high-fliers.
Heores ... Charlotte, Darwin, Nick and FOG relax between sorties
A lot of old hands didn't think a woman would be up to fighting an Apache - and I was one of them.
It wasn't a sexist thing - we didn't think she'd be able to take the immense physical pressure.
She proved us completely wrong.
As one of five new pilots for 656 Squadron's second Afghan tour, practically every week this incredible woman notched up another record.
Kill
Not only was she the first woman ever to fly a British Apache, but since this was her first tour of duty, she was also now the first to do so on operations. A few days into the tour, she became the first British woman to kill in an Apache.
But Charlotte kept her most vital first until nearly the end of the tour.
It was then that she saved my life, and maybe seven others' lives, proving her place among the Corps' elite aviators in the thick of the worst battle we'd ever fought.
It came during our attempt to rescue mortally wounded marine Lance Corporal Mathew Ford from Taliban stronghold Jugroom Fort.
While Billy, Geordie, Carl and I landed our two Apaches inside the fort with two marines strapped on the wings of each, it was Charlotte and a second Apache crew's job to protect us from above.
The fight was four hours old by then. Hundreds of Taliban were crawling all over the place, reinforcing it from many miles away so the crews had their work cut out for them.
At one stage, her co-pilot Darwin flew them low over my left shoulder while Charlotte slapped five consecutive 20-round cannon bursts into a big group of Taliban trying to get to us from a treeline barely 200 metres to our north-east.
Keep pulling that trigger, Charlotte.
Once she'd run out of cannon rounds, then came an ear-piercing screech and the mighty flash of an explosion as she piled a Hellfire missile into the treeline too. A quarter of a second later, the missile's pressure wave passed through my clothing and I heard the sound of branches splitting and plummeting to the ground. A second Hellfire closely followed the first.
She was there for us too when we were at our most vulnerable, finally taking off in a dust cloud from the fort with Mathew tied on to our aircraft's foot well.
After 20 agonising seconds of blindness, we burst out of the gloom straight into blinding sunshine and a crystal blue sky. As we soared towards the hill on the other side of the river, Charlotte's Apache was waiting for us there, hovering 200ft above the marines' firebase.
As she spotted us, two more Hellfires shot off her rails with their a***s on fire and buried themselves deep into the eastern treeline.
Inside story ... Apache
Switching instantly to rockets, she then let rip on the Taliban in the fort with her 16 Flechette and eight high explosive rockets. They came out in pairs, left ahead of right - left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right - each leaving a vivid jet of flame in their wake. It was the biggest rocket launch I'd ever seen and at the end of it angry clouds of propellant vapour shrouded her entire aircraft.
By the time she and the other Apache's gunner Nick were finished, we were safely out of enemy range.
If it wasn't for Charlotte's sharp-shooting, I doubt any of us would have got out of there.
Along with Nick, Darwin and FOG, Charlotte flew three consecutive sorties that day.
It meant they'd been in the cockpits for more than 11 hours without once getting out, not even for so much as a p**s. A Herculean effort.
On the flight back to base, the four Apaches exchanged ammo states over the aircraft's air-to-air text service.
Rockets
All of us had started off with the usual "Load Charlie" - 300 rounds of 30mm cannon, 24 rockets and four Hellfire missiles.
Our Apache had 16 rockets still in the tubes, but we were out of Hellfire and only had 80 cannon rounds left. Two other crews were running equally low.
But Charlotte and Darwin's text just read: WINCHESTER. It was the code for exhausting your entire weapon supply. It dates from the First World War. When biplane pilots exhausted their machine guns, they reached for their Repeaters.
Going Winchester is heavily frowned on. Ammunition is our lifeblood and has to be carefully rationed. Use it all up in one go and you have nothing left to fight with.
Charlotte had run dry in the last seconds of our extraction. She had executed her fire plan to perfection - and become the first British Apache flier ever to go Winchester. She'd notched up a second record at the same time - the fastest rate of fire on any British Apache sortie - £426,353.36 of ammunition in just six minutes.
She still holds that record today, and I can't see it ever being beaten.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1611554.ece#ixzz0bgtytTKq
