THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607090036
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 138 lines
AT THE TOP of the metal stairs waits the dunker.
The six aviators make the climb encased in heavy helmets, laced into sturdy leather boots, zipped into full flight gear. They strap themselves into seats in what looks like a large oil drum. They take deep breaths.
A technician rattles through last-minute instructions. The fliers grope the metal surfaces around them, try to memorize their surroundings with their hands.
They know they'll need to.
They know what's coming.
They know the cylinder will suddenly drop 10 feet into water, flip over and sink 16 feet.
They know they'll be upside-down underwater, and that it's dark at the bottom of the pool.
Four times they'll strap themselves into the 9D5 dunker. The first time they'll ``escape'' through the nearest exit in the cylinder, which is designed to simulate a helicopter fuselage. The second time, they'll be told to go out the main cabin door.
Then come the other two drops.
The fliers know that those are a bit more difficult - they have to exit wearing black goggles. Blind. Disoriented. Sixteen feet down.
That, they know, is when the dunker lives up to its nickname: ``panic in a can.''
``I have a little nervousness,'' says Cmdr. Bill Mnick, before the test he's already taken three times in his 18-year career.
Mnick is one of 17 pilots and crewmen who have traveled from Maryland to spend the day at the Aviation Survival Training Center, located at Norfolk Naval Air Station.
``The dunker is the worst part of the whole thing,'' he says. ``It's not pleasant.''
The training center, one of five the Navy runs on the East Coast, provides two-day refresher survival training for military aviators, crew members and ``selected passengers,'' including VIPs, frequent fliers and celebrities.
Students take physiology classes and endure a low-pressure chamber, swimming tests and several water exercises, all aimed at helping them survive an accident or midair emergency.
Last year more than 2,600 students went through the center.
``Our goal is to overtrain aviators,'' said Cmdr. Rick Erickson, the center's boss. ``We teach reflective behavior, how to be act in a survival scenario.
``The last thing many pilots remember is ejecting from their aircraft, then the next thing they know, they're in a raft,'' he said. ``It's all reflexive.''
Members of the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Army and Navy ROTC get their refresher survival training at the air station facility.
Aviators and crew members must take the course at least once every four years. Because Chief Everett Stayrook, a flight engineer on a P-3 Orion maritime patrol plane, has been in the Navy for 17 years, this is his third time through the training.
``When you only do it every four years, you tend to forget things,'' said Stayrook, 35. ``There are minor changes, for new technology. It's fun, really.
``I'd sooner do it here than in real life,'' he said.
Pretending to get untangled from the lines when you parachute into water usually isn't that difficult; neither is unhooking your harness when the exercise calls for your parachute lines to drag you through the water.
And being hoisted up to a make-believe rescue helicopter might fall into the category of fun.
It's the ``2 and 2'' and the dunker that most students dread. In the ``2 and 2'' exercise, each airman must tread water for two minutes and do the ``dead man's float'' for two minutes - while wearing complete combat gear - then swim 75 yards using a variety of strokes.
Chief Stayrook finishes his four runs in the dunker with a thumbs up. ``I always have fun in this thing. It's a blast,'' he says.
It is not a universal opinion.
``I don't like this thing,'' said Mnick, who may retire before he's due for another refresher course. ``It may be my last trip, and I won't miss it.''
Twenty-one fresh-faced junior officers listen as a petty officer lists the symptoms of hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.
The fliers, newly arrived at Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 120 (VAW-120), the air station's training squadron, have heard it all before: fatigue, nausea, confusion, numbness, blurred vision, euphoria, headache, belligerence.
They are about to get a reminder of how it feels. After the class, the students, most of whom will fly the E-2C Hawkeye, put on helmets, communication headsets and oxygen masks, and enter ``the chamber,'' a small room that simulates loss of cabin pressure.
Even though the young aviators have recently completed flight school in Pensacola, Fla., they must take this two-day course before they leave the training squadron for their permanent assignments.
``Give me your name and seat number,'' the staff physiology technician tells the students when they've filed into the chamber. He finishes his instructions with: ``We're going to take you off oxygen for 15 minutes. Whenever you feel you need to, put your masks back on.''
Instructors manning controls simulate air pressure at 10,000 feet. Over the next 15 minutes, they boost the altitude to 20,000.
The aviators, minus their oxygen masks, are given paper and pencils and told to complete a questionnaire - simple, memorable things, like their names, birth dates, how many children they have.
The students write quickly and correctly - at first.
As the minutes tick by, several slow down. Some do neck rolls, others yawn, squeeze their eyes open and shut. One by one they put their oxygen masks back on, except for two aviators.
``I just wanted to see how far the symptoms would develop,'' says Lt.j.g. Brad Davidson, a new E-2C pilot with VAW-120. ``I wanted to push it to the limit.''
Davidson, 25, keeps his oxygen mask off the entire 15 minutes. He experiences fatigue, joint pain, slowed thinking, a cold sweat and the giggles. He makes several mistakes and erasures on the written form he is trying to complete.
Under normal flying conditions, any loss in air pressure would signal aviators to put on their oxygen masks immediately. Time in the low-pressure chamber is necessary to give them a taste of hypoxia, so they will recognize the symptoms right away.
Physiologists, corpsmen and - at the pools - divers are always in attendance to monitor tests, guide training and offer assistance.
``We're here to train,'' said Chief Jim Catrett, leading chief of the physiology section. ``But we're here to train safely.''
The E-2C aviators whip off their helmets as they step from the low-pressure tank, loosen their collars.
For a moment, there seems much to celebrate: air surrounds them, oxygen-rich air, lung-filling and thick. They breathe it in gulps.
Triumph is fleeting, however. Unlike their colleagues from Maryland, these young airmen have another day of training ahead of them.
The water part of the course.
Not far away waits the dunker. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Vicki Cronis
Above: A trainee hangs in full gear above a pool, waiting to drop
into the water to simulate an emergency water landing.
Left: Sean Winburn watches as the water level rises during a
simulated water crash.
VICKI CRONIS /The Virginian-Pilot
Daniel Sanford, an instructor at the Aviation Survival Training
School, drills trainees on emergency parachute evacuation.
KEYWORDS: AVIATION SURVIVAL TRAINING CENTER by CNB