Rotation Flight – Reporting from Afghanistan

Szöveg: Balázs Trautmann | 2012. május 24. 10:49

After a five and a half hour flight, under cover of night, the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III strategic airlifter that had taken off from Pápa, Hungary landed on the aerodrome of the Mazar-e Sharif military base. In addition to the soldiers filling individual positions, the aircraft with SAC01 registration transported the Hungarian and US members of the eighth rotation of the HDF Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT-8) – which has the mission of mentoring the infantrymen of the Afghan National Army (ANA) stationed in Baghlan Province –, as well as the third rotation of the Mi-17 Air Advisory Team (Mi-17 AAT-3) and the seventh rotation of the Mi-35 Air Mentor Team (Mi-35 AMT-7).

The soldiers traveling in the huge cargo plane were seated comfortably relative to the circumstances, but this should be understood within the limits of military cargo transport – they occupied the seats mounted on the standardized pallets placed on roller
tracks of the cargo floor and the troop seats mounted on the two sidewalls.

Although in the absence of stewardesses, the troops on board had to eat from their individual meal packs, this was made up for by the experience of the night tactical landing without lights – which was carried out with the use of NVGs.

The crew of the aircraft used a simple but clear method to signal the crossing of the Afghan border, as they put on their bullet-proof vests which are compulsory for all aircrews to wear in the airspace of Afghanistan.

Fortunately, the grey C-17 landed with a jolt on the runway of the NATO base in Mazar-e Sharif without any problems under cover of darkness, then after a short taxiing the disembarking Hungarian and US soldiers caught sight of the well-known buses of the German Air Force.