Page 80 - The KRH Year of 2023 (CREST Sharing)

80 The Regimental Journal of The King’s Royal Hussars
The Flying Hussar – A farewell for now
An African elephant’s gestation period is 23 months. On average, completing a full-time PHD course lasts between three and four years. If you’re completing the Army Pilots Course to become a front-line pilot, this will take you approxi- mately 5 years and 10 months...
After successful stints in C Sqn as Troop Leader and Sqn 2iC, then as Adjutant of the Queen’s Own Yeomanry, in 2018 Capt Pryor embarked upon his fixed wing training at RAF Cranwell attached to the Army Air Corps. This involved about 60 hours of aerobatic and low-level flying including some solo naviga- tional sorties over cultural hubs like Hull and Kettering. Whilst flying fixed wing was an enjoyable experience, the more aero- batic manoeuvres proved to be less so with Capt Pryor excel- ling much more when he was straight and level than inverted. All this training is aimed at preparing pilots for the more demanding rigours of flying helicopters where Capt Pryor’s “agricultural” aerobatics would no longer be so important.
After a brief period as 3 AAC’s Intelligence Officer and a small delay due to a worldwide pandemic, Capt Pryor embarked upon his rotary journey at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire. Following a prolonged ground school in which he learnt that there was more to flying helicopters than simply going up diddly up and down diddly down, Capt Pryor enjoyed the
freedom helicopters afforded him and tested himself by plac- ing the aircraft inside increasingly smaller clearings. Notable highlights were landing at the Atomic Weapons Establishment with just about the right permissions and a flying visit back to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. 120 hours later (spread out over 17 months, of course) Capt Pryor was finally awarded the Army Flying Badge aka wings and selected to fly the new AH-64E Apache helicopter.
After a short stint in MOD Main Building, it was off to Fort Rucker, Alabama in the American Deep South to learn from our cousins how to fly. By this time, flying a helicopter was
a bit like riding a bike and the ground school a bit more like Lord Flashheart’s brief to the ‘Twenty Minuters’; Capt Pryor knew he would excel. 60 flying hours and 40 rounds of golf later, Capt Pryor could com- fortably claim to be an Apache pilot and wear his American wings alongside his