Seven Years in an Advisory Role

Szöveg: honvedelem.hu | 2018. március 27. 7:19

Seven years; Shindand and Kabul; close to 1500 flight hours – since 2011, the transport helicopter aircrews and ground crews of the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base have been working together with the transport helicopter crews of the Afghan Air Force, mentoring their work and giving them advice on their operational activities.

Currently it is already the 19th rotation of the HDF Mi-17 Air Advisory Team (AAT) that is doing the high-level work which includes classroom and simulator training, basic and further aircrew training, as well as mentoring of the aircraft technicians. In the last seven years, several reports were written about this mission of the Hungarian aircrews and ground crews. But how do the Afghan helicopter pilots see this joint work? They started their aviation career seven years ago working together with the airmen of the Hungarian Rubik helicopter battalion and AVUM Battalion, they were trained by them and now they serve in various positions of the units of the Afghan Air Force.

Captain Obaidullah Ibrahimkhil, operations and planning officer, Presidential Airlift Squadron, Afghan Air Force

“I started my aviation career at Shindand, where I was taught by well-prepared Hungarian instructors. These were the first steps taken, which provided a solid basis for standing my ground later on a further training course in the United States, and then in Kabul during my helicopter pilot-in-command training. Here, I had opportunity to work together with the Hungarian colleagues again, and I learnt the operation and use of the helicopter weapons system under their mentoring guidance.

Currently I work as a helicopter pilot instructor, being one of those pilots who can transport the president of our country. I think I owe very much to the Hungarian instructors. I always received real answers from them to my questions about the Mi-17 helicopter, and they always instructed us with patience and professionalism while flying and also during the academic part in the classroom. I remember many of them by name, as they started me on my career path and later came back to visit us.

I really appreciate their attitude that caused them to leave their families at home and to come here to help us with protecting the citizens of our country".

Major Mohammad Yama Abrar, helicopter pilot, 377th Helicopter Squadron, Afghan Air Force.

“After graduating from the Kabul national defense university, my dream of becoming a pilot came true. In 2011, I started my training at Shindand where I worked together with US, Italian and Hungarian instructors. All of them without exception were well-prepared instructors, and somehow we always hoped that we would be trained by the Hungarian team that day.

Trust means a lot to me, and I will never forget when my instructor, Major Kovács let go of the controls while hovering, and entrusted me with flying the helicopter. I owe much to the Hungarian flight engineers too. I learned the professional operation of the helicopter from them and from the excellently trained Hungarian ground crew members.

Back in those days, we had a limited number of hours to conduct training in the Mi-17, thus, as the first Afghan pilot, I had a chance to fly the MD-530 helicopter too.

In 2015, already in Kabul, I carried out my first live missile firing campaigns flying a Mi-17 again as helicopter pilot-in-command, under the mentoring of Hungarian instructors, too. I learnt so much from them at that time again. Each of them gave me something to learn, and so I never left “empty-handed" the classroom, the simulator or the helicopter after flying.

I can say that I regard all of them as my friends, they guided me on my way to becoming a real pilot, and as a result, I can start training on the UH-60, the future helicopter type of our air force."