CooLorNoT? :D

Nikita
Offline
"Never interrupt an enemy who's making a mistake." Napoléon Bonaparte

5 years 5 months ago #193 by Nikita

Replied by Nikita on topic CooLorNoT? :D

An old one...

No targets , no shootings, but a brilliant and elegant demonstration of French ALAT "VOLTAC" tactical flight.

VOLTAC, for "Vol Tactique", is the name given in the French ALAT for extremely low flights, performed usually in anti-tank attack context, basically consisting in taking advantage of the terrain configuration as to remain the most undetectable and/or untargetable possible, ideally until the moment when the helicopter opens fire. Such combat flights may often be conducted at maximum speed. In this video, if i'm not wrong - and i think i'm not - it's a Gazelle Viviane SA 342 M1, equiped with thermal / optic cameras and laser rangefinder. also some sequences are doubtless beyond cruise speed, that is above 230 km/h.

The first developpements of VOLTAC took place in 1963 at the base of Cannet-des-Maures, under direction of Captain Le Bot. Year after year, the expertise and experience of French pilots keep rising and, in 1974, after a visit at the school base of Le Luc, American General Maddox, commanding the US Army Aviation Center of Fort Rucker, will state in an article of Army Aviation : "My most vivid impression is that the ALAT aviators are doing what we, we are still talking about". ⁽¹⁾

Base of Le Luc, 1974. From left to right : Captain Schlauder, Captain Jeannesson, Lieutenant-Colonel Monguilan, General Maddox and Colonel Lafarie, commanding officer of the school. Credit : Picture via Alain Schlauder.

Present days, the reputation of the ALAT is made and worldwide recognized. I don't give importance to common sentences on the web, such as "best of the world" or similar but, for having served beside them, i can definitely say that those guys would be very serious contenders.

I already posted a first version of this video some years ago. Basically, i downloaded an already existing video and changed the soundtrack. I don't have any copy but i gess Snow made one if i'm not wrong. Nevermind, i just remade it, with perhaps a slightly difference on sound synchronisation. This time, i save a copy on my Youtube account. Snow, let's consider that it's the director's final cut version.