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06-01-2010, 10:37 AM
Airmen train Afghan troops to fly
By Michael Hoffman - Staff Writer
Posted : Monday May 31, 2010 11:28:24 EDT
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Lt. Col. Todd Prejean looked at his Afghan co-pilot as their Mi-17 Hip helicopter circled over the dirt landing pad.
“Are you going to land this thing or what?” Prejean, a career HH-60 Pave Hawk pilot, said into his headset.
Prejean waited two more minutes, then took over the controls from Lt. Faridudin Sadiki and landed the Soviet-era bird at Forward Operating Base Apache in southwest Afghanistan.
As he lowered the helo, Prejean asked Sadiki why he decided not to make the landing.
“I was too tired,” Sadiki said.
Much like a father exasperated by teaching his teenage son to drive, Prejean struggled to control his temper. He raised his voice — for just a moment. He calmed down and explained to Sadiki that fatigue isn’t an acceptable excuse.
“If I get shot in the face, and you can’t fly because you are tired, then everyone dies,” Prejean said, again over the radio.
The pilots’ mission this day was to transport Afghan soldiers from Bastion Airfield near Helmand province to Apache, an Afghan National Army base about an hour’s flight from Kandahar.
Prejean invited Air Force Times along for the flight, one of 80 or so sorties he has flown in his four months here. As commander of the 441st Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron, Prejean is responsible for teaching about 30 members of the Afghan National Army Air Corps how to fly and maintain four Mi-17 Hips.
The rest of the Afghan pilots are mostly based in Kabul, where they fly Mi-17s as well as Mi-35 helicopters and C-27, An-26 and An-32 cargo planes.
Plenty of aircrews wouldn’t take on the 441st’s job.
“Are you insane?” asked Army Sgt. Jeffery Sherwood, a Chinook crew chief assigned to the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade that shares Kandahar Airfield with the Afghans. “There’s no way I’m getting in that helicopter.”
Prejean is well aware of the challenges that he and his airmen face.
“It’s not like in the U.S. where you can go to a training range and set up a scenario,” he said. “Here, I don’t have the ability to stop the war and set it up.”
Not all the lessons are taught in the air, though. The airmen stress prep work — the pre-mission brief, for example — as much as flying time.
Before the start of one pre-mission brief, Prejean scanned the room and noticed not one Afghan flight engineer. The Afghan pilots had a simple but unsatisfactory explanation for Prejean: The flight engineers were cleaning a part on the helicopter.
“They have to be at these meetings,” Prejean told the pilots before going on to explain the day’s flight path. “They are important parts of the crew.”
Later in the meeting, after the U.S. intelligence officer gave his rundown, Prejean noticed the Afghan intelligence officer was absent, too. He shook his head and explained why the pilots need to discuss risks before every mission.
“Always think of the risks,” he said, “and find ways to mitigate those risks.”
Taking flight
Prejean eased the Mi-17 off the Kandahar Airfield runway. Sadiki, the Afghan co-pilot, and Maj. John Baer, a flight nurse, looked out the window to see if the Afghan pilots in the trail helicopter were indeed behind them.
Shortly after takeoff, Prejean handed over the controls. Sadiki lifted the helicopter to 200 feet off the deck.
“We’re way too high,” Prejean told the interpreter, sitting between him and Sadiki, who speaks Pashto.
Sadiki took Prejean’s direction from the interpreter and pointed the nose down toward the desert. The helo descended to 50 feet.
Next, Prejean needed to know why Sadiki wasn’t wearing a face shield.
“We do that in case a bird goes through the window so it doesn’t hit us in the eye,” he explained to Sadiki through the interpreter.
Prejean has tried to teach himself Pashto and Dari, the languages most common in Afghanistan. Pashto is more popular near Kandahar, but most of the Afghan pilots come from the north, where Dari is usually spoken.
“The biggest problem is the language,” Sadiki said. “They don’t know our language and we don’t know their language.”
The Americans are struggling too with how their Afghan counterparts define the roles of aircrew members. For the airmen, the aircraft commander is the decision-maker. The Afghans are used to giving more authority to their flight engineers.
On a refueling stop, the Afghan flight engineer took it upon himself to decide how much fuel to take on. Prejean made it clear that he didn’t like not being asked.
“It is up to the pilot how much gas goes on the aircraft. If we get another mission, then we won’t have enough gas for that mission,” he told the flight engineer through the interpreter.
Then Prejean turned to Sadiki: “He has to talk to me before he does that stuff. We work as a crew, not as a single person.”
Breaking bread
Prejean’s Mi-17 and the trail helicopter flew on to pick up 50 Afghan soldiers, all in their late teens and early 20s. Each looked giddy to get onboard.
“This might be the first helicopter ride for a lot of these guys,” Baer, the flight nurse, said. “It’s a lot better than having to travel by land over those roads” littered with improvised explosive devices.
As Sadiki flew toward FOB Apache, which sits near the town of Qalat, Prejean explained how important it is to add more helicopters to the ANAAC’s fleet. Plans call for 10 more Mi-17s in Kandahar by 2011.
“There is only one real highway in this country. Look below. You don’t see any real roads and the ones they have are so bad. The helicopter is the perfect truck for this country,” he said.
After the 45-minute flight, the two aircrews agreed to have lunch at Apache.
“I like to eat with the Afghans whenever I can because I want them to see that we want to be a part of their team,” Prejean explained as the crews walked toward the dining hall. “Any time we can spend time with them, we should. That’s the best way to get to really know these guys.”
Walking back to the helicopters after a lunch of goat and rice, Prejean assessed the progress of the Afghans in the short time since he arrived.
“You can tell these guys want to get better. And that’s what matters,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do, but you can see the pilots taking in what we teach them. Each day we make a little more progress in setting up a professional air force.”
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/05/airforce_afghan_fly_053110w/
By Michael Hoffman - Staff Writer
Posted : Monday May 31, 2010 11:28:24 EDT
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Lt. Col. Todd Prejean looked at his Afghan co-pilot as their Mi-17 Hip helicopter circled over the dirt landing pad.
“Are you going to land this thing or what?” Prejean, a career HH-60 Pave Hawk pilot, said into his headset.
Prejean waited two more minutes, then took over the controls from Lt. Faridudin Sadiki and landed the Soviet-era bird at Forward Operating Base Apache in southwest Afghanistan.
As he lowered the helo, Prejean asked Sadiki why he decided not to make the landing.
“I was too tired,” Sadiki said.
Much like a father exasperated by teaching his teenage son to drive, Prejean struggled to control his temper. He raised his voice — for just a moment. He calmed down and explained to Sadiki that fatigue isn’t an acceptable excuse.
“If I get shot in the face, and you can’t fly because you are tired, then everyone dies,” Prejean said, again over the radio.
The pilots’ mission this day was to transport Afghan soldiers from Bastion Airfield near Helmand province to Apache, an Afghan National Army base about an hour’s flight from Kandahar.
Prejean invited Air Force Times along for the flight, one of 80 or so sorties he has flown in his four months here. As commander of the 441st Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron, Prejean is responsible for teaching about 30 members of the Afghan National Army Air Corps how to fly and maintain four Mi-17 Hips.
The rest of the Afghan pilots are mostly based in Kabul, where they fly Mi-17s as well as Mi-35 helicopters and C-27, An-26 and An-32 cargo planes.
Plenty of aircrews wouldn’t take on the 441st’s job.
“Are you insane?” asked Army Sgt. Jeffery Sherwood, a Chinook crew chief assigned to the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade that shares Kandahar Airfield with the Afghans. “There’s no way I’m getting in that helicopter.”
Prejean is well aware of the challenges that he and his airmen face.
“It’s not like in the U.S. where you can go to a training range and set up a scenario,” he said. “Here, I don’t have the ability to stop the war and set it up.”
Not all the lessons are taught in the air, though. The airmen stress prep work — the pre-mission brief, for example — as much as flying time.
Before the start of one pre-mission brief, Prejean scanned the room and noticed not one Afghan flight engineer. The Afghan pilots had a simple but unsatisfactory explanation for Prejean: The flight engineers were cleaning a part on the helicopter.
“They have to be at these meetings,” Prejean told the pilots before going on to explain the day’s flight path. “They are important parts of the crew.”
Later in the meeting, after the U.S. intelligence officer gave his rundown, Prejean noticed the Afghan intelligence officer was absent, too. He shook his head and explained why the pilots need to discuss risks before every mission.
“Always think of the risks,” he said, “and find ways to mitigate those risks.”
Taking flight
Prejean eased the Mi-17 off the Kandahar Airfield runway. Sadiki, the Afghan co-pilot, and Maj. John Baer, a flight nurse, looked out the window to see if the Afghan pilots in the trail helicopter were indeed behind them.
Shortly after takeoff, Prejean handed over the controls. Sadiki lifted the helicopter to 200 feet off the deck.
“We’re way too high,” Prejean told the interpreter, sitting between him and Sadiki, who speaks Pashto.
Sadiki took Prejean’s direction from the interpreter and pointed the nose down toward the desert. The helo descended to 50 feet.
Next, Prejean needed to know why Sadiki wasn’t wearing a face shield.
“We do that in case a bird goes through the window so it doesn’t hit us in the eye,” he explained to Sadiki through the interpreter.
Prejean has tried to teach himself Pashto and Dari, the languages most common in Afghanistan. Pashto is more popular near Kandahar, but most of the Afghan pilots come from the north, where Dari is usually spoken.
“The biggest problem is the language,” Sadiki said. “They don’t know our language and we don’t know their language.”
The Americans are struggling too with how their Afghan counterparts define the roles of aircrew members. For the airmen, the aircraft commander is the decision-maker. The Afghans are used to giving more authority to their flight engineers.
On a refueling stop, the Afghan flight engineer took it upon himself to decide how much fuel to take on. Prejean made it clear that he didn’t like not being asked.
“It is up to the pilot how much gas goes on the aircraft. If we get another mission, then we won’t have enough gas for that mission,” he told the flight engineer through the interpreter.
Then Prejean turned to Sadiki: “He has to talk to me before he does that stuff. We work as a crew, not as a single person.”
Breaking bread
Prejean’s Mi-17 and the trail helicopter flew on to pick up 50 Afghan soldiers, all in their late teens and early 20s. Each looked giddy to get onboard.
“This might be the first helicopter ride for a lot of these guys,” Baer, the flight nurse, said. “It’s a lot better than having to travel by land over those roads” littered with improvised explosive devices.
As Sadiki flew toward FOB Apache, which sits near the town of Qalat, Prejean explained how important it is to add more helicopters to the ANAAC’s fleet. Plans call for 10 more Mi-17s in Kandahar by 2011.
“There is only one real highway in this country. Look below. You don’t see any real roads and the ones they have are so bad. The helicopter is the perfect truck for this country,” he said.
After the 45-minute flight, the two aircrews agreed to have lunch at Apache.
“I like to eat with the Afghans whenever I can because I want them to see that we want to be a part of their team,” Prejean explained as the crews walked toward the dining hall. “Any time we can spend time with them, we should. That’s the best way to get to really know these guys.”
Walking back to the helicopters after a lunch of goat and rice, Prejean assessed the progress of the Afghans in the short time since he arrived.
“You can tell these guys want to get better. And that’s what matters,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do, but you can see the pilots taking in what we teach them. Each day we make a little more progress in setting up a professional air force.”
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/05/airforce_afghan_fly_053110w/