Prince Harry will head back to war against the Taliban after SAS training that will see him hunted down - and TORTURED. His ordeal will begin as he is dropped in the Welsh Brecon Beacons armed with a survival kit including a super-light silk map, a snare for catching food - and gold coins issued to troops so they can try to buy their way to freedom. Harry will be mercilessly tracked with dogs. Once captured he will be deprived of sleep and continually screamed at while being blasted with deafening white noise. The Prince must defy mental and physical abuse by interrogators who will try to debase him. He can only give name, rank, age and serial number. An SAS source said: "Any sensitivities he had about his family or love life will be smashed open to see how he copes. Being called ginger is the least of his problems."
The prince’s six-month “conversion to role” course is expected to end just after Christmas. It is thought to also include six weeks in an airfield in the US – possibly Arizona’s Gila Bend airfield – where he will fly sophisticated training missions over entire “mock” villages and towns.
He will even learn how to go to the loo while flying. The source said: “It’s one of the hardest things a pilot has to learn, how to have a wee while flying one of the world’s most hi-tech choppers. Imagine trying to pee into a bottle while driving 120mph in your car, and times that by 10.”
A source said: “There is a real chance of being hit in Helmand by rocket launchers, and although it has never happened to an Apache, the Army Air Corps will not take any chances. They teach you how to turn into a wild animal and survive in the desert like a beast. You don’t wash, you poo into plastic bags and do everything you can to make yourself stink like an animal to confuse tracker dogs.” Harry will be equipped with an SA80 Carbine assault rifle and a small pistol. The 26-year-old, known as a “bullet magnet” is to get a new name during his mission to lawless Helmand as an army Apache helicopter pilot. HE would be one of the Taliban’s most treasured scalps if shot down and captured in the killing fields of Afghanistan. So military top brass will pull out all the stops to make sure Prince Harry does not fall into the hands of the barbaric thugs, including giving him a new identity. And he will have a refresher survival course to drum home to him how to flee hostile territory without leaving a trace, or at least put pursuers off his scent. Other crew members and comrades will also be ordered never to refer to the prince by his real name, especially over the airwaves, in a bid to stop insurgents tracing his whereabouts.
He will have to get to grips with the helicopter’s highly sophisticated weapons system which includes an M230 Chain Gun with 1,200 rounds, Hydra 70 air-to-ground rockets and Hellfire missiles. A 30mm cannon on the nose is “slaved” with a lens in the pilot’s helmet, meaning he can choose where it will fire by moving his head in the direction of the target.
But former Apache pilot Major Jim Panton said because the technology allows you to see targets close up, it can cause psychological problems. He added: “You can see very clearly the people you kill. The Apache can cut people to shreds with its cannon. Seeing that can have an effect on pilots.” Apache Dawn author Damien Lewis said pilots can suffer “sensory overload” in the cramped cockpit. He said: “You are surrounded by buttons and levers.”
An army source with intimate knowledge of the Apache programme said it is likely Harry will be thrown into the action at the deep end after training that has so far believed to have cost an estimated £1million. The source added: “As soon Harry was accepted on to the pilot scheme it was obvious he was going to be deployed. It is so expensive and time consuming to train an Apache pilot that if he wasn’t going to serve, it would not only be a huge waste of money but he would be taking someone else’s seat. Harry served on the front line in Afghanistan in 2008 with the Household Cavalry. But he was withdrawn after foreign media broke a news blackout.
The prince’s six-month “conversion to role” course is expected to end just after Christmas. It is thought to also include six weeks in an airfield in the US – possibly Arizona’s Gila Bend airfield – where he will fly sophisticated training missions over entire “mock” villages and towns.
He will even learn how to go to the loo while flying. The source said: “It’s one of the hardest things a pilot has to learn, how to have a wee while flying one of the world’s most hi-tech choppers. Imagine trying to pee into a bottle while driving 120mph in your car, and times that by 10.”
A source said: “There is a real chance of being hit in Helmand by rocket launchers, and although it has never happened to an Apache, the Army Air Corps will not take any chances. They teach you how to turn into a wild animal and survive in the desert like a beast. You don’t wash, you poo into plastic bags and do everything you can to make yourself stink like an animal to confuse tracker dogs.” Harry will be equipped with an SA80 Carbine assault rifle and a small pistol. The 26-year-old, known as a “bullet magnet” is to get a new name during his mission to lawless Helmand as an army Apache helicopter pilot. HE would be one of the Taliban’s most treasured scalps if shot down and captured in the killing fields of Afghanistan. So military top brass will pull out all the stops to make sure Prince Harry does not fall into the hands of the barbaric thugs, including giving him a new identity. And he will have a refresher survival course to drum home to him how to flee hostile territory without leaving a trace, or at least put pursuers off his scent. Other crew members and comrades will also be ordered never to refer to the prince by his real name, especially over the airwaves, in a bid to stop insurgents tracing his whereabouts.
He will have to get to grips with the helicopter’s highly sophisticated weapons system which includes an M230 Chain Gun with 1,200 rounds, Hydra 70 air-to-ground rockets and Hellfire missiles. A 30mm cannon on the nose is “slaved” with a lens in the pilot’s helmet, meaning he can choose where it will fire by moving his head in the direction of the target.
But former Apache pilot Major Jim Panton said because the technology allows you to see targets close up, it can cause psychological problems. He added: “You can see very clearly the people you kill. The Apache can cut people to shreds with its cannon. Seeing that can have an effect on pilots.” Apache Dawn author Damien Lewis said pilots can suffer “sensory overload” in the cramped cockpit. He said: “You are surrounded by buttons and levers.”
An army source with intimate knowledge of the Apache programme said it is likely Harry will be thrown into the action at the deep end after training that has so far believed to have cost an estimated £1million. The source added: “As soon Harry was accepted on to the pilot scheme it was obvious he was going to be deployed. It is so expensive and time consuming to train an Apache pilot that if he wasn’t going to serve, it would not only be a huge waste of money but he would be taking someone else’s seat. Harry served on the front line in Afghanistan in 2008 with the Household Cavalry. But he was withdrawn after foreign media broke a news blackout.
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