1000th Flight Hour Completed

Szöveg: AAT-8 | 2014. március 30. 6:04

On March 18 the personnel serving with the eighth rotation of the HDF Mi–17 Air Advisory Team (AAT-8) reached another important milestone, as they completed the 1000th flight hour of Hungarian helicopter mentors in Afghanistan.

Aboard a Mi–17

To honor the ceremonial flight, Col. József Mogyorósi, the senior national officer of the Hungarian soldiers serving in Afghanistan arrived at Shindand Air Base.

The flight started with practicing landing in unknown areas (“dust landing"). Piloted by AAT-8 commander Lt.-Col. Tamás Bali, and Capt. F., the helicopter landed in a desert area among the mountain chains north-west of the air base. The two flight engineers, SFC S. and SFC K. assisted the helicopter pilots with the approach to landing.

After the take-off, the flight continued with “assaulting" the nearby mountaintops by practicing landing on them. The environmental training was followed with a live fire exercise, during which the two door gunners of the helicopter, SFC B. and SFC I. fired the onboard machine gun of the aircraft.

The personnel of the eighth rotation of the HDF Mi–17 Air Advisory Team have completed the 1000th flight hour of Hungarian helicopter mentors in Afghanistan

In the 77th minute of the flight, during the execution of the LFX task, the contingent reached the 1000th flight hour. The participants of the post-flight briefing were in a festive mood. Lt.-Col. Tamás Bali pointed out that the 1000 hours completed without any accidents in Afghanistan are an achievement of the Hungarian rotary-wing branch of arm, and attests to the high standards of pre-deployment training in Hungary. This result has been achieved through the dedicated work done by the aircrews and the ground crews.

After the flight, Col. Quadratullah, the commander of the Afghan helicopter forces stationed at Shindand air base thanked the Hungarian mentors for their work, and Col. Daniel T. Lasica, the commander of the US 838 Air Expeditionary Advisory Group also expressed his appreciation.