Top Gun Harry To Combat Taliban As Pilot

Prince Harry is expected to be operating alongside British and American Special Forces troops targeting Taliban commanders and bomb-makers during a combat tour flying Apache helicopters in Helmand later this year.

The Prince was a prize-winning student among a course of 20 on the 'Conversion to Role' training, which teaches pilots how to use the weapons on the Apache helicopter gunship.

"The prize of best co-pilot gunner marks out the student whose overall performance during the course is assessed as the best amongst their peer group," the Ministry of Defence said.

"The award handed to Captain Wales consists of a polished 30mm round from an Apache cannon mounted on a stand."

Colonel Neale Moss, Commander of the Attack Helicopter Force at Wattisham Station, said: "The Apache course is extremely challenging, teaching and testing students in their flying skills, decision making and mental agility on exercise all over the country and abroad.

"They are assessed continually to ensure that they are up to the challenge of operating one of the most sophisticated attack helicopters in the world."

Captain Wales will now spend several months based in Wattisham, Suffolk, continuing to train with his squadron, learning to fly with different crew members and building up his hours in the sky.

Most of his combat tour to Afghanistan will be spent providing close air support to infantry and escorting Chinook helicopters carrying soldiers and supplies around the province.

The threat to the Prince will be the same as it is for other pilots. So far there have been few incidents of the use of surface-to-air missiles, which are the biggest potential danger.

The Taliban have shot down other aircraft with heavy machine guns or rocket-propelled grenades. British Apache pilots avoid most threats by flying high and out of the range of most insurgent weapons.

When he is finally sent to Afghanistan the Prince's most controversial task, shared with the rest of his squadron and all Apache crews in Helmand, will be to support small Special Forces squads of soldiers on top secret missions to kill and capture Taliban leaders.

"Working alongside Special Forces is a normal part of an operational deployment in Helmand for all Apache crews. They are an integral part of many operations of that sort," a senior officer told Sky News.

Apache aircraft, armed with thermobaric Hellfire missiles, which are designed to collapse buildings, and 30mm cannon, have been in the forefront of attacks on the "middle management" of insurgent groups.

In 2010, the Special Air Service was reported to be killing on an "industrial scale". That has since eased off, Sky sources say, but they continue to be targeted.

The Apache's thermal imaging and night sights, as well as its phenomenal firepower, have been put to ruthless use gunning down "squirters" - insurgents trying to escape from Special Forces sweeps and known bomb-makers.

When Captain Wales is sent to Helmand he will often fly for four to five hours a day, sometimes more, directed by Forward Air Controllers, a job he did on his last tour of Afghanistan.

The FACs, now known as Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, are responsible for directing helicopter and jet aircraft on to targets from the ground. They have been an invaluable asset in offensive and defensive operations against insurgents, often tipping the balance in favour of outnumbered British troops.

Sources close to Prince Harry said that his family, notably his father Prince Charles, had been "uncomfortable" with the idea that as an Apache pilot he would be flying missions on which there was a certainty that he would be required to take human life.

But he has insisted that he wanted to take a combat role and is understood to have said to his father that, as a Forward Air Controller in Helmand in 2007, he had ordered aircraft to bomb Taliban positions and was therefore already responsible for causing casualties.

Military insiders said that he was an "extremely able pilot" who was likely to command an aircraft from the front seat, which would also put him in charge of the Apache weapons systems.

"He is quick and bright. He shoots well, he rides well, he can fly and he's not afraid of taking decisions," one senior officer said.