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Dispatches from Afghanistan

Fortune Favours the Trained

By Madonna Walsh, Boeing Defence UK Communications

Back to Dispatches from Afghanistan

Long before soldiers, sailors, airmen or marines arrive in Afghanistan, they go through extensive training to ensure they are up to speed with the latest tactics and procedures. Once in theatre, they are matched with experienced personnel to adjust to the hot and arid climate.

Royal Air Force Flt. Sgt. Mick Fry will spend time with the Canadians and their new Chinooks (Neg#: MSF09-0077-14)
Royal Air Force Flt. Sgt. Mick Fry will spend time with the Canadians and their new Chinooks. (Madonna Walsh photo)
"Training before you get out here is crucial," said Flight Lt. Hannah Brown, Tactical Instructor and Royal Air Force (RAF) Chinook pilot currently deployed to the Helmand region of Afghanistan. "Some of us are on our fifth tour so we're quite used to it, but those arriving new are expected to operate as a competent co-pilot, even in the most demanding of circumstances."

In a renovated hangar in Lincolnshire, England, training exercises involving members of British Army regiments and RAF squadrons focus on how to interact and work as a team. There is an emphasis on coordinating missions as fire support teams. The teams include artillery observers and forward air controllers who work with Apache, Chinook and fast jet pilots.

"This training is unique and it allows us to deliver a level of operational tempo found in the field," said Lt. Col. Stuart Gray, chief instructor of the Royal Artillery Gunnery Training Team for the British Army. "A synthetic training environment allows us to deliver collective training to the operational team for the air component of the joint battlespace."

A loadmaster hops a ride on a Canadian Chinook. (Neg#: MSF09-0077-15)
A loadmaster hops a ride on a Canadian Chinook. (Madonna Walsh photo)

Not all training is synthetic. "A unique feature of the Chinook is its ability to land on ridgelines just on the back wheels," said Brown. "That requires a certain amount of actual flight training in order to accomplish such a feat."

"Afghanistan is probably one of the most intense challenges you find on the ground, as a line infantry soldier, or in the air as a helicopter pilot," said an Apache pilot (identity withheld for security), at Camp Bastion in Helmand the UK's main forward operating base. "The challenges of helicopter flying here are many and varied, like dust and sand, the heat, the high altitudes, the deep darkness at night, and, of course, the enemy who is also shooting at us every day in some way or form. So the better trained you are when you get here, the better off you will be."

Training also includes coalition forces. Flight Sgt. Mick Fry, a Chinook Flight Loadmaster and Instructor for the RAF, has trained Australian, Dutch and most recently, Canadian loadmasters on their country's Chinook fleets.

"Working with other coalition forces adds another dimension," said Fry. "We learn from each other. It only gets better as time goes by."