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538th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron Changes Hands

  • Published
  • By MC1(AW) Elizabeth Burke
  • 438th AEW Public Affairs
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN --  The NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan's 538th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron held its change of command ceremony at the Afghan Air Force base in Kabul, on October 28, 2010. Lt. Col. C. Michael Smith assumed command from Lt. Col. James Piel.

Lt. Col. James Piel was the architect advisor of the Afghan Air Force's 373rd fixed wing squadron. His 14 month deployment spanned many milestones and accomplishments, none greater than the establishment, training and qualification of C-27 loadmasters.

"I think the loadmaster training has been our biggest accomplishment because we didn't just make loadmasters. We took some guys with some basic loadmaster skills, and we turned them into both flight engineers and loadmasters. These guys have never had any formal English language training. Most of them have a high school education at best-and that is the very educated one-and now they run a cockpit, a C-27 cockpit. They run checklists, they move switches, they handle emergency procedures, oh and by the way, they also do all the cargo and passenger handling in the back. It is double duty. And they have been forced to learn all of this in English with no training," Piel said.

He credits the loadmasters' success to three things: the previous advisors who selected and nurtured the most capable An-32 crew members, the Afghans desire to learn and his handpicked superintendent Senior Master Sgt. Mike Crews.

"They weren't even a crew position three years ago. They would grab maintainers or ground support personnel or whatever to basically ride in the back of the airplane to make sure passengers didn't open doors. That was essentially what they were doing. There was no restraining cargo, there was no weight and balance done, there was no systems knowledge, no seat belts," Crews said. "So we have taken these guys and brought them to a westernized standard where not only do they know how to restrain cargo, perform weight and balance to make sure the aircraft is safe to fly but now they are acting as flight engineers as well knowing the systems in depth on the airplane. So they have gone from standing still to full speed in a very short period time and it's amazing what they have done."

As Smith takes the baton from Piel, he plans to focus on basic flying skills and continuity training as the AAF moves to a combat role.

"We have to fly into our combat role but we can't forget about where we've been and what we're doing...just because you are combat ready and ready to go do that air drop mission doesn't mean you still don't have to practice it, still don't have to go do touch and goes to make sure you can land, run through the checklists properly don't try to skip steps", Smith said. "They have been flying for years. They have previous experience as an air force but it is a different type of air force and in modern day with the equipment we have we need to make sure we know what we are doing and we don't skips steps in order to get there."

The Afghans are moving away from the An-32 aircraft and transitioning to the more modern C-27 aircraft. The C-27A Spartan is a rugged, twin-engine turboprop aircraft with short take-off and landing capability. The Spartan is well suited for Afghanistan's mountainous terrain and limited road network. These obstacles make air power critical to the mobility of the Afghan National Security Forces. A C-27 can carry up to 20,000 pounds of cargo and fuel and operate on unimproved airfields as short as 3,000 feet, which allows access to airstrips unreachable by most fixed-wing aircraft.

Now with 19 qualified crew members, seven of which are loadmasters the future of the 373rd looks bright. They now have seven C-27 Spartans on the flight line and are anticipating the delivery of two more in the next week. Newly trained pilots will start returning to Afghanistan at the rate of one to two per month starting in January 2011 and the screening process for pilots will soon begin in their junior year at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan. Previously 45 percent of pilot candidates were disqualified for medical reasons.

Looking back Piel explains it like this, "The year went by blazingly fast, but at the same time we were so busy every single day that you couldn't see your progress and what was happening around you because you were so deep in the middle of the dust storm. So now, as we are starting to drive out of the dust storm a little bit and look back and see the house that's standing behind us, it's a pretty good feeling."