Don’t try to shoot people from a helicopter

by philg

The exciting social life of a helicopter instructor… clearing off the desk on a Saturday night. Before I throw out the February 2007 Rotor and Wing magazine, I thought it worth relating the results of an experiment by a police department SWAT team. They loaded a bunch of sharpshooters and their rifles into a helicopter, went up, and tried to shoot some person-sized (stationary) paper targets on the ground. Unlike in the movies, the guys in the helicopter were not able to hit anything on the ground. Meanwhile, despite wearing earplugs and a helmet, the pilot was getting a terrible headache from the noise of the sniper rifle firing. They do shoot goats from helicopters in the Galapagos, but somehow it doesn’t work here. The author concluded that nothing less than an Apache would suffice for the police to use against perpetrators…

16 thoughts on “Don’t try to shoot people from a helicopter”

  1. They have been using helicopters to hunt the feral pigs out here in the channel islands. It is my understanding that they are using .223-caliber rifles and flying quite low. Perhaps it’s a better shooting platform when you can swoop down right above your prey.

  2. My question is about the methodology, but I am sure (I hope) they studied the problem before actually doing the experiment. It turns out that free holding a rifle in a rotary wing aircraft is a tough job and the best way to accurately fire is to use a sling attached to the airframe. I should also add that higher powered scopes will also prove problematic in this situation and true long range shots beyond 500 meters or so will be almost impossible.

  3. Like Mark said, I know they do this to animals. I’ve even seen footage of dudes using single-shot dart guns to shoot animals (wild kingdom and that sort of thing) So, the feat must be possible. The dudes at reason have literally dozens of posts about SWAT incompetence. According to Jeff Cooper, the best tool to hit what you shoot at from a helicopter is a very bright laser sight. BW, most people can’t hit crap at 500 meters from a steady rest, much less a helicopter.

  4. The worst an animal can do is run away…and a helicopter is a remarkably effective tool for countering that tactic. But a cop who’s shooting out of a helicopter is probably aiming at a human being (or, in this case, training to do so) which means he’s going to be presuming that his target will shoot back. Helicopters available to civilians are not especially well-equipped for defending against incoming gunfire. Hence the distinction.

  6. SuperMike,

    500 meters is not that tough, even with smaller rounds like the .223. I’ve even seen relative novices who are able to hit targets out to 500 meters with very little training. However, add in a little wind, heat, a moving platform that you are trying to shoot out of, massive speed differentials, vibration and noise and the job gets pretty damned tough. I’d bet that most shots out of a helicopter for deer hunting (or other applications) happen within 200 meters and only after a couple of passes (or more).

  9. I’m from one of those Channel Islands… (Try to guess which one 😉 From what I know, this method was effective enough to have entirely eradicated goats and and boar on the island. I’m not sure why law enforcement sharpshooters would have an issue doing this – surely the animals move quicker and are more nimble than their two-legged counterparts!

  10. Don’t military snipers use helicopters as precision shooting platforms routinely? Are they able to do so because of better helicopters, stablized rifle mounts, or better trained snipers?

  11. Yet another reason not to shoot from a helicopter..

    Moose Brings down Helicopter in Alaska.

    A cow moose that had been tranquilized for tracking purposes made an unexpected move, and ran into the tailrotor of a hovering Hughes 369D in Alaska Saturday afternoon. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing.

    http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=b1080b81-13a3-444e-92c9-6dc3b17a3d4a

    http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/accident_incident/preliminary_data/media/K_0305_N.txt

  12. Shooting from a moving vehicle (or while moving) is an acquired skill.
    Conventional snipers will have little faculty for this task, as they optimize their kinesthetics towards zero movement.
    Fortunately they did the test and discovered you can’t make take this type of capability for granted.
    If they had tested some local skeet/trap shooting experts, they would likely have had a much better results, even given the change in weapons.
    As other comments show, people who frequently shoot from helicopters can get good at it.
    (And the laser sight is likely to be a big help.)
    If police forces frequently had this requirement, there would probably be a market for actively stabilized mounts.

  13. Coincidentally, in the past week or so, I came across a reference to the shooting school “Thunder Ranch®” (http://www.thunderranchinc.com/) teaching shooting from helicopters. There doesn’t seem to be anything on their website about it, but they do list a telephone number so there’s an obvious way to find out if that’s on the “secret menu”.

    One would assume that a police department SWAT team might seek out people with experience in a matter before performing “experiments”, but that would be assuming….

  14. This calls for the application of the gyro mount that you plugged a few weeks back:

    http://www.ken-lab.com/

    I wonder if this could easily be adapted for this purpose. I have the rifle. Now all I need is the $2K or so to try out the gyro stabilizer.

  15. Don’t military snipers use helicopters as precision shooting platforms routinely?

    No. Snipers operate from concealment. In some kinds of operations, sharpshooters may operate from a helo, but in that case the helo is flown by a special ops pilot, and it serves basically as a high altitude deer blind. The pilot keeps it as still as possible. Single shot rifle firings from a moving helo are damn near impossible.

    Someone must have watched Blue Thunder and got a woody. A more reasonable approach would be an H-60, cheaper to maintain by an order of magnitude, with hardmounted .50 cals. If they had to have an honest to goodness assault copter (which is just plain silly, but, whatever), and AH1-W is a much more appropriate aircraft.

  16. It seems like a good idea to have a “mobile sniper” but it doesn’t work. Without a heavy caliber machine gun spraying automatic fire, it is just dumb luck in an urban environment. Now a high power single shot mounted and hooked into the stabilization of the craft? Humm…That might be interesting. I pray that the police will never have the power of an Apache.

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