Tweet
Facing Language Gaps and ‘Flying Trucks,’ U.S. Trains Afghan Pilots
KABUL, Afghanistan — Col. James A. Brandon flew Black Hawks when Moscow was considered a mortal foe of the United States and spent years in the Army studying enemy aircraft. So he now finds it a little bizarre to be piloting an old MI-17 Russian helicopter, a legacy of the Soviet invaders here, in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan.
“If somebody had told me in the 1980s that I’d be flying an MI-17 20 years later,” Colonel Brandon said last week, “I’d have said they were crazy.”
The program, which is projected to cost American taxpayers $5 billion into 2016, is aimed at giving Afghanistan the ability to defend itself from the skies and one day allowing the Americans to leave.
One problem is that many of the 80 or so Afghan pilots being trained do not speak English, an issue when American instructor-pilots are barking out orders to them in helicopters careering above Kabul. There is no room in the cramped MI-17 cockpit for an interpreter, and in any case things usually happen too fast.
“We don’t have time to ask a translator to say, ‘Don’t hit the mountain,’ ” said Lt. Col. Todd Lancaster, the commander of the helicopter squadron of the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, the American unit that is building up what is officially called the Afghan National Army Air Corps.
Americans have in the past been taught to fly MI-17s, mostly for military exercises to teach them how to counter enemy aircraft. (The MI-17 is used all over the world, including by Iran and North Korea.) The Afghan program is modeled after an earlier American effort to build up the Iraqi Air Force, which also includes some MI-17s. But the Russian helicopters, which make up the bulk of the Afghan fleet, have an ironic resonance in a country where in the 1980s the United States supplied guerrillas with Stinger missiles to shoot Soviet helicopters down.
These days, the American pilots encounter some resentment from the Afghans who have been flying the Russian helicopters for decades — Colonel Bakhtullah has been a pilot since 1981 — and wonder why they must take instruction from Americans who just learned to fly the helicopters in a four-week course at Fort Bliss, Tex.
Apparently haven't heard of, or don't know, the true essence of, Catch 22.
Colonel Jones said he understood the Afghan point of view and tried to make suggestions rather than demands. “We’re really trying not to come across as conquering heroes,” he said.
I'm thinking...now channeling...Vonnegut.
The Afghan pilots also complain about their salaries, some $200 to $300 a month, which are paid by the Afghan air corps. “No one cares for us,” said Ehsan Ehsanullah, one of the best Afghan pilots, after a training flight last week. He said he made more money in the 1990s, when he was flying for the Taliban.
Think..."Milo"
Military regulations require that United States pilots fly MI-17s if there are Americans aboard, and the American pilots can fly only those MI-17s that have certified parts and that Americans maintain. Colonel Jones’s training helicopter was a secondhand MI-17 that the United States bought for Afghanistan from the Czech Republic.
An ideal scenario for attacking an unoccupied Afghan mountain....
One bright spot is the new $183 million headquarters of the Afghan air corps, paid for by the Americans. It includes two hangars, barracks, a medical unit and classes in English.
Hawkeye is near....
General Givhan remains optimistic about the program, which late last year trained the Afghans to transport their president, Hamid Karzai, on special MI-17s. Before that, the Americans flew Mr. Karzai everywhere.
The program, General Givhan said, is “our ticket out of here.”
Or was that Gen. Dweedle?
List of motifs of catch 22 (the Afghan Adventure, and in some cases, if we're lucky):
(tip of the hat to Wikipedia)
Everybody here that's old enough, remember ARVN ;)
Change-change-change....change of fools....
“If somebody had told me in the 1980s that I’d be flying an MI-17 20 years later,” Colonel Brandon said last week, “I’d have said they were crazy.”
The program, which is projected to cost American taxpayers $5 billion into 2016, is aimed at giving Afghanistan the ability to defend itself from the skies and one day allowing the Americans to leave.
One problem is that many of the 80 or so Afghan pilots being trained do not speak English, an issue when American instructor-pilots are barking out orders to them in helicopters careering above Kabul. There is no room in the cramped MI-17 cockpit for an interpreter, and in any case things usually happen too fast.
“We don’t have time to ask a translator to say, ‘Don’t hit the mountain,’ ” said Lt. Col. Todd Lancaster, the commander of the helicopter squadron of the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, the American unit that is building up what is officially called the Afghan National Army Air Corps.
Americans have in the past been taught to fly MI-17s, mostly for military exercises to teach them how to counter enemy aircraft. (The MI-17 is used all over the world, including by Iran and North Korea.) The Afghan program is modeled after an earlier American effort to build up the Iraqi Air Force, which also includes some MI-17s. But the Russian helicopters, which make up the bulk of the Afghan fleet, have an ironic resonance in a country where in the 1980s the United States supplied guerrillas with Stinger missiles to shoot Soviet helicopters down.
These days, the American pilots encounter some resentment from the Afghans who have been flying the Russian helicopters for decades — Colonel Bakhtullah has been a pilot since 1981 — and wonder why they must take instruction from Americans who just learned to fly the helicopters in a four-week course at Fort Bliss, Tex.
Apparently haven't heard of, or don't know, the true essence of, Catch 22.
Colonel Jones said he understood the Afghan point of view and tried to make suggestions rather than demands. “We’re really trying not to come across as conquering heroes,” he said.
I'm thinking...now channeling...Vonnegut.
The Afghan pilots also complain about their salaries, some $200 to $300 a month, which are paid by the Afghan air corps. “No one cares for us,” said Ehsan Ehsanullah, one of the best Afghan pilots, after a training flight last week. He said he made more money in the 1990s, when he was flying for the Taliban.
Think..."Milo"
Military regulations require that United States pilots fly MI-17s if there are Americans aboard, and the American pilots can fly only those MI-17s that have certified parts and that Americans maintain. Colonel Jones’s training helicopter was a secondhand MI-17 that the United States bought for Afghanistan from the Czech Republic.
An ideal scenario for attacking an unoccupied Afghan mountain....
One bright spot is the new $183 million headquarters of the Afghan air corps, paid for by the Americans. It includes two hangars, barracks, a medical unit and classes in English.
Hawkeye is near....
General Givhan remains optimistic about the program, which late last year trained the Afghans to transport their president, Hamid Karzai, on special MI-17s. Before that, the Americans flew Mr. Karzai everywhere.
The program, General Givhan said, is “our ticket out of here.”
Or was that Gen. Dweedle?
List of motifs of catch 22 (the Afghan Adventure, and in some cases, if we're lucky):
- Sanity and insanity
- Heroes and heroism
- Absurdity and inefficiency of bureaucracy
- Power of bureaucracy
- Questioning/Loss of religious faith
- Impotence of language
- Inevitability of death
- Distortion of justice
- Concept of Catch-22
- Greed
- Personal integrity
(tip of the hat to Wikipedia)
Everybody here that's old enough, remember ARVN ;)
Change-change-change....change of fools....
Comment