Rotation at 03:00 PM – Reporting from Afghanistan

The same goes for the pilots and aircraft maintainers of the AMT-6 who are now concentrating on packing and return home. The team returning from the mission has spent five months in the area of operation, including the period transfer of authority process. During the joint work they laid great emphasis on radio communications. Most Afghan colleagues speak English on some level, but do not know the radio communications phraseology used in flight. In the interest of flight safety, it was also important to make sure that the Afghan aircrews reach the required level of language proficiency.

The work has been meaningful, and fortunately the commander of the sixth rotation also experienced this first-hand. The present one has not been his first mission in Kabul, as he had served here between August 2010 and January 2011. Compared with those times, a lot of progress has been made since, because the Afghans have now started using the NAVAID avionics too. True, the Hungarians have been able to benefit from the lessons learned here and to develop professionally.

The helicopter pilots of the Hungarian Defence Forces have not previously been in such a lucky situation. The AMT crews fly above the areas of operations with a type of attack helicopter they use back at home in Szolnok. This means a very big professional advance for every airman who works here. Flying above the lands of Afghanistan cannot be easily compared with flying above those of Hungary. In fact, the two are incommensurable as everything is different from the atmospheric conditions to the altitude to the temperature.

During the pre-deployment training the tasks they were assigned were aimed at preparing the aircrews for being able to fly safely here in Afghanistan as well. However, the lessons learned here are invaluable, and having identified these lessons, they were able to incorporate them into the training programs conducted in Hungary. The integration of additional tasks into the training – like rolling take-off on the nose gear with acceleration, a technique often used here – is in progress.

The pilots will increase the number of high-altitude flights, because Kabul lies at an elevation of 1800 meters, and the tall mountains are characteristic of the whole country. The Afghan and Hungarian aircrews need to learn how to fly safely in environments like these too.

The airmen of the seventh rotation are receiving a lot of new information. The aircraft maintenance technicians are cooperating with the aircrews to be able to go further in the direction set by the previous six rotations of the AMT that has been working here for two years. They have to fly above less familiar terrain at high altitudes and temperatures among the mountains. The way the engines and the helicopters work here is completely different, a lesson they have learnt during the first start-up of the engines. They will have something to learn from the Afghan partners too, as one of them has been flying combat sorties for 28 years, so he has nearly 8,000 flight hours flown in various conflicts. Yet this battlewise Afghan pilot says that the Hungarian mentors have shared with him a lot of knowledge, and he is keen to receive new pieces of information from them in the next few months.

Photo: Veronika Dévényi

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