Croatian Advisors Join NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan Published Sept. 10, 2010 By MC1 (AW) Elizabeth Burke 438th AEW PA KABUL, Afghanistan -- A team of ten advisors from the Croatian Air Force joined the NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan in Kabul on September 8, 2010. This is the first Croatian unit to join the NATC-A. The Croatian Advising Mentoring Team will mentor the Afghan Air Force in Mi-17 maintenance and operations. "We are very excited about the arrival of the Croatian Mi-17 AMT. While we already have other NATO partners beside us, they are the first NATO Mi-17 team to join us and they bring a wealth of experience to the fight and improve our overall mentoring capability," said Lt. Col. Wayne McCaskill, Director of Operations for the NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan/438th Air Expeditionary Wing. "This partnered approach offers a wide variety of operational talent that greatly helps our mission of building an independent, professional, and operationally capable Afghan Air Force. A coalition approach is critical to this mission that is in-turn critical to stability in the region. We look forward to working 'Shonna ba Shonna' with the Croatian team." The team consists of two full Mi-17 crews and maintainers half from the capital region near Zagreb and half from Dalmatia on the Adriatic Sea with plans to increase to 19 personnel by May of 2011. They have committed to advising in four month rotations for two years. They will be split between the rotary wing maintenance advisors and the presidential airlift squadron. The Croatians bring over 100 years of experience to the advisor role and while they have only been here 48 hours, the work has begun and they are already asking tough questions. The Croatian's join the NATC-A coalition partners of Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the United Kingdom and the United States.