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| Photo: Resolute Support HQs, Jan 15, 2016 |
Four
A-29 Super Tucanos touched down at Kabul's international airport in mid-January 2016. It has taken a long time (years) to get to this stage but Afghanistan has finally got some fixed-wing aircraft so that the
Afghan Air Force (AAF) can provide air support in its counterinsurgency fight against the Taliban. The A-29 is a light-support aircraft capable of conducting
close air support, aerial escort, armed overwatch, and aerial interdiction. The first Afghan A-29 pilots completed over 300 days of flight training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, (U.S.) in December 2015. The pilots and their aircraft should be combat-ready in April. The AAF is expected to receive 20 a-29s in the next few years. Watch a short video (1 min) posted by Resolute Support hqs on YouTube.com on January 16, 2016 entitled
The Afghan National Airforce gets four new A29s.
On a related note,
one of the two missing Afghan airmen who disappeared in the United States in December 2015 has been located. The two were part of a group of 14 undergoing maintenance training for the A-29 aircraft at Moody AFB. One of the men was an AAF lietuenant while the other was a senior master sergeant. They went missing one week prior to their scheduled graduation and return to Afghanistan. (
ABC News, Jan 14, 2016).
It will be interesting to see the effect this capability and its operational employment affects events on the ground. The question is whether their spin up training will create a demand to slide into a warfighting role early.
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