News

Fuselage to become first flight, loadmaster trainer for Afghan Air Force

  • Published
  • By Jenny Gordon
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
A C-27A fuselage housed at Robins for the past year will become the first G222 flight and loadmaster trainer for the Afghanistan Air Force.

The 33,000-pound fuselage was loaded on a trailer Aug. 11 and taken into possession by the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO-STRI). It had previously been held by the U.S. Special Operations Command which in turn retrieved the aircraft from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.

From Robins, the fuselage will travel to Savannah and on to Trencin, Slovakia, where it will be reconfigured by Virtual Reality Media for simulation training. From there it will be moved to Kabul, Afghanistan, where representatives from NATO Air Training Command - Afghanistan will hand it over to aircraft maintainers and pilots.

With the overall mission to help build and sustain an independent Afghan Air Force, the fuselage simulator will teach Afghans how to properly load and unload an aircraft and how to transport troops. It will also provide pre-flight cockpit as well as medical evacuation training - all in a controlled environment while not putting wear and tear on live aircraft.

The fuselage simulator is one of four G222 aircraft simulators under contract by Fidelity Technologies to be built and eventually trained on by Afghan forces, according to Michael Younce, project director with PEO-STRI.

Two of those simulators will be used as flight training and basic aviation training devices, whose systems are subcontracted to Aeronautical Systems Engineering of Odessa, Fla. The other is an Mi-17 Russian helicopter, which will be used for flight training, also to be repurposed in Slovakia.

In 2008, the U.S. began working with Alenia North America to supply G222 aircraft to the Afghan Air Force. The program refurbishes retired planes from the Italian Air Force. To date there are 11 planes in the U.S., with a goal of 20.

It takes some effort coordinating aircraft from Italy to Afghanistan, said Bill Wheaton, logistics specialist with the Center's Foreign Military Sales Office. Wheaton and his colleagues tracked the worldwide whereabouts of the C-27A and its parts prior to its arrival at Robins last year.

"They have a daunting task," said Wheaton, referring to training challenges faced by American trainers. "First, they're speaking English working with an Italian aircraft, and trying to train Afghans who speak Dari. They put in a lot of hours - and have a very important mission - while also doing operational missions to help supply the warfighters."

It took about six hours to remove the C-27A's center wing box, and load the 75-foot long aircraft on a flatbed trailer.