Door Gunner Training

During the more than two years that the AMTs have spent in the area of operations, it happened for the first time that they managed to conduct within the training program a Door Gunner live fire exercise from aboard Mi-35 helicopters in the area of operations.

Situated near Kabul, the range – which provides a suitable venue for air-to-ground gunneries as well – was only a 20 minutes’ flight for the Mi-35 helicopters. Flying there was a routine task for the well-trained aircrews of the Czech–Hungarian formation.

The primary mission in the impact area was to take out obsolete combat vehicles, that is, “hard-skinned targets" which are widely used on the Hungarian ranges too. The assault rifles in use aboard the helicopters performed the tasks smoothly on the line of fire.

As helicopter pilots, Capt. Ő. and Capt. S. have already proven themselves. Now it turned out that both of them can achieve excellent results as door gunners as well. Since only one aircraft was allowed to stay on the range at the same time, the two helicopters flown by the Czech and Hungarian crews took alternate turns in the impact area every 30 minutes. Besides the periodical checking of the weapons, the live fire exercise provided the soldiers with useful experience.

Photo: Csaba Hegedűs (AMT-8)