Soldiers hone skills, aid Border Patrol

By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
El Paso Times
Photo by Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times
Article Launched:03/08/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

Thumbing a joystick button, Lt. Col. John W. Thompson rotates a mast-mounted ball on top of a Kiowa Warrior helicopter as it sits on the tarmac at Biggs Army Airfield.

Views on two green-tinted screens set in the narrow cockpit's dashboard slide up the spine of the Franklin Mountains.

Using infrared radar, the unit's 21 Kiowas have been flying night missions to scout smuggling corridors for suspicious activity.

"With the desert cool at night, and when someone is running and sweating, they stick out like a sore thumb," Thompson said. "I can tell whether it's a man or a woman, whether they have a jacket on or a hat, whether they're smoking a cigarette or what have you. ... We've also seen lots of rabbits, cows and deer."

Flying between 500 and 1,000 feet above the ground with the helicopter doors off to provide a better view, the "left-seat" navigator is responsible for scanning with the radar, while the pilot, in the right seat, maneuvers the aircraft.