Hungarian Airmen in Afghanistan

At this year’s first lecture entitled Hungarian Airmen in Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Dr. József Koller, Commander, HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base outlined the most important elements of Hungary’s military engagement. After introducing the audience to the terrain features, climate and demographics of the Central Asian country, he continued talking about its economic and industrial characteristics. Referring to the history of the country that has already undergone so many wars, the brigadier-general stated that although wars have been going in that area for several millennia, nobody has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan.

The commander of the helicopter base said that a milestone had been reached in April 2010, when the HDF Mi–35 Air Mentor Team started working in Kabul, as the pilots of the Hungarian Air Force had not been involved in such a mission since the end of World War II. “During the first year we mainly had training-related tasks, including test flights of helicopters, and the preparation of Afghan pilots and ground crews for the use of aircraft. Then, as the training progressed, we helped the Afghans’ work during operational sorties too", the brigadier-general said, adding that the Americans soon realized that most of the time the Afghans tend to listen to the Hungarians of all the airmen of the nations deployed there, so before long the Hungarians became the lead mentor team. “The background to this is that some pilots among the Afghans had studied together with us as young students in Kyrgyzstan 25 years earlier", Dr. József Koller added.

From August 2011, the HDF Mi–17 Air Advisory Team (AAT) started its training activities on Shindand Air Base, with the main mission of preparing the Afghan Mi–17 transport helicopter aircrews, providing them with (further) training and mentoring the technical activities related to helicopter maintenance. No sooner had this training mission ended on the Shindad base than another mentor team started working at NATO’s request, this time in Kabul. The HDF Resolute Support Mission Mi–17 Air Advisory Team is currently working beside the Afghan air squadron to assist and mentor its tasks and support its training.

In the second half of the lecture, Brig.-Gen. Dr. József Koller delineated the requirements that all pilots preparing to depart for the Afghanistan area of operations must meet. As he noted, the airmen participating in the pre-deployment training took part in a SERE (survival) course, a Combat Lifesaver (CLS) training, peace support training and target practice, mountain training, special professional aircrew training and motor vehicle driving training. Then – after this training methodology got expanded, thanks to the lessons learned in operations – the preparation came to incorporate flight simulator training and door gunner training as well.

In what followed, he described the most important tasks of the Hungarian contingent deploying in the area of operations, which were many-sided and included a number of procedures from academic training to practice flights to operational sorties. It was revealed that in several cases, the teaching of skills required professional preparedness as well as creativity of the Hungarian aircrews.

“There are some heroes among us who saved human lives in Afghanistan", the brigadier-general said, and used original photos taken on the scene to illustrate the story of how an aircrew consisting of airmen of the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base rescued the crew of an MD–530 helicopter destroyed by an IED.

At the end of the lecture a short film was screened to introduce the everyday life of Hungarian airmen serving in the Afghanistan area of operations, which is sometimes full of fun moments but demands all the more responsibility.

Photo: Veronika Dévényi