There Are No Unsuccessful Exercises

The transport aircraft of the Heavy Airlift Wing (HAW) had already started to maneuver for taking off on a mission, when several wild animals appeared out of the blue, crossing the runway in front of the aircraft. The pilot aborted the take-off and switched on the emergency braking system. However, due to the hard braking, part of the cargo started to move in the cargo hold and some of the passengers were wounded. Moreover, due to the intensive braking, the brakes of the landing gears warmed up. Of course, all this was only part of an exercise scenario.

Lt.-Col. Zoltán Vicai, the Chief of Staff of the Air Base told us that every exercise of this type can be said to be successful because even if not everything works out 100 per cent, one can always learn from the mistakes.

“The bottom line is not to carry out the exercise perfectly but to make sure that next time we will not have to face the problems that now emerged, so that we can execute our task on a higher level in the future. At the same time, it has been an unquestionable success that our fire service subunit was able to rescue the injured from the aircraft in a short time, and the medical staff provided first aid and transported them to a local hospital (only in the fictitious scenario). During the first after action review, we gathered together the entire training audience to analyze the positive lessons learned of the exercise and to identify the minor problems.

There are soldiers of 12 different nations serving in the Heavy Airlift Wing stationed at the Base, so English was the language of coordination during the exercise.

To operate the aircraft they use the US Air Force regulation procedures as the common baseline from among the various national regulations, but the personnel of the Air Base also use ICAO, NATO and national guidelines.

Lt.-Col. Todor Golakov, the Chief of Staff and quality manager of the Heavy Airlift Wing told us that the exercise was a success in his assessment.

“It is not easy to follow a common procedure for 12 nations, so we need to train together by all means. The most important thing is that everyone has learned from the exercise. Twelve nations, one team, one vision", the lieutenant-colonel told us.

According to plans, there will be a similar follow-up exercise this autumn.