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Afghan Air Force C-27 crew chiefs begin communication training

  • Published
  • By Capt. Rob Leese
  • 438th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs officer
KABUL, Afghanistan --  Communications is important, especially when flying over a mountainous country like Afghanistan and talking to other aircraft and control towers. That importance is why the Afghan Air Force began training their avionics maintainers over six months ago, and those AAF maintainers are now beginning to train their crew chief counterparts March 5.

Sgt. 1st Class Zaki, one of the initial cadre and the second C-27 AAF avionics maintainer, began training Sgt. Samiullah, a crew chief and engine/body maintainer, on how to operationally check the V/UHF radio during the preflight.

Sergeant Zaki has finished training in the communication portion and is now being tasked to train the AAF crew chiefs and engine/body maintainers on proper use of the interphone, public announcement and V/UHF systems.

Staff Sgt. Jesse Jaynes, a NATO Air Training Command - Afghanistan C-27 Avionics advisor from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., explained, "The communication system can be used plane to plane, plane to ground and plane to any tower as long as the frequencies are the same."

Sergeant Jaynes taught them the theory of operations, component systems location, operational check and basic trouble shooting of the communication system and now the Afghans continue to teach the material to other AAF members.

If there is a problem during the preflight communications check, a relationship has now been established between the AAF avionics maintainers and crew chiefs that will help fix the issue before it can become a bigger problem.