I was fresh back from victory in the mountains of Azerbaijan, another medal heavier, war stories galore, when the bosses decided I could go to NTC Fort Irwin on a refresher, Exercise Azure Rune '99.

"Refresher for what?" I thought, "I've just come back from a real war!"

I was to learn quite a sobering lesson however - this was actually HARDER than Azerbaijan. It wasn't that I was now flying against the best equipment in the world - our own - it was that the desert is a very harsh environment for anything that flies. Rise above ground level and you can be seen for miles. If you can shoot 5 kilometres and your targets can shoot 20 you don't stand much of a chance!

So I had to learn to fly this helicopter. Really fly it. Not just swanning about the skies as we had in the war: let's face it - you could fly a jumbo jet at 500 feet down one valley in Azerbaijan and not be noticed by a tank in the next. Here forty feet was good, and twenty feet better. No autopilot. No autohover to 100 feet. All manual. Hover at 10 feet. Survival lay in going low and slow, in clever use of ground and subtle differences in elevation that I wouldn't even have noticed in the war and in use, if you were very lucky, of the Longbow Radar. If its height gives you an extra few feet of protection it can be the difference between life and death.

So that's why I chose it for my first reconnaissance mission - that and the punch it would pack against the Patriot sites I wanted out of the game before the Exercise Azure Rune '99 even really began. Thinking down the line and learning from the lessons of the war, I wanted the SAM sites and radar down very early on, with constant pressure keeping them out of action. By the middle stages of the exercise I wanted freedom to roam unhindered behind enemy lines, taking out tanks, artillery, headquarters, FARPs and supply units.

But first the SAMs and then the helicopters. It is, after all, difficult to fight enemy helicopters whilst under attack from enemy SAM sites.

My wingman was in a NR Longbow (16 laser hellfires) and I had a full complement of 16 radar missiles. We lifted off and headed towards the phase line.

By switching on the FCR early the primary task of spotting the enemy armour was easy enough - even at four kilometres the M1 Abrams MBTs gave nice heavy radar returns and soon we were free to carry on with the hunt, our mission completed and the enemy dispositions logged.

We skirted the enemy armour position; you are not meant to destroy your reconnaissance targets and headed behind enemy lines on the search for SAMs and Radar. A couple of avengers fell victim to my missiles, while the armour they were meant to protect was handed off to my wingman. I couldn't believe the time it was taking - back in the mountains we would have been back home already, but here I was having to check fuel gauges just in case.

Still, we were making progress and the ASE was already showing a Patriot site some 15km away, even though a small rise offered us protection from their targeting radar. Once we had a fright as enemy helicopters passed close by. I panicked and called in air support: big mistake. By the time the F16 was overhead the enemy helicopters had moved on, presumably on their own recce mission, and the Viper soon fell victim to that Patriot as it made a sweep. Another lesson learnt. I wondered how many times I was going to make the same mistake.

As we moved further behind enemy lines we came across an M109 position, protected by an M163 Vulcan AAA system. Well, hellfires go further than 20mm rounds, and though he knew we were there, there wasn't much he could do about it, especially after the missiles hit.

M109s are perfect cannon fodder, and will sometimes go up after just 10 rounds. Not surprising really, as they usually have a pile of 155mm artillery shells stacked within a couple of metres. Within seconds they started exploding nicely and providing a merry blaze. Not really a challenge but still, if it helps our guys ....

Moving on from there, at a coyote's head height, we saw in the distance, a Kiowa and a NR Longbow moving to the enemy's rear at a fair old pace, mission presumably completed. We set off in pursuit, amazed that they didn't spot us. We swung in behind them at a range of about 4km and saw them crest a rise. By the time we topped it ourselves, after the usual careful preliminaries and at very low speed, the enemy were settling down into a FARP some 2km away. Their noses were pointed away from us and I don't reckon they saw us or the hellfires that hit them as they touched down. Nice kills!

Well, it was time to head for home. I'd like to say we received a hero's welcome but we didn't quite get that far. One kilometre from the FEBA I misjudged a rise at 80 km/h and crashed and burned. Almost a great mission!