{"id":46988,"date":"2018-06-04T19:41:26","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T19:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/06\/04\/the-afghan-air-force-may-be-one-of-the-few-success-stories-in-a-17-year-war\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:19:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:19:57","slug":"the-afghan-air-force-may-be-one-of-the-few-success-stories-in-a-17-year-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/06\/04\/the-afghan-air-force-may-be-one-of-the-few-success-stories-in-a-17-year-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Afghan Air Force may be one of the few success stories in a 17-year war"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/atype-video-jwplayer><\/figure>\n\n\n

After a scathing quarterly report <\/a>to Congress cast more doubt on the security situation in Afghanistan, few things in the wayward country appear to be going well, except, that is, for the Afghan Air Force<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. military officials in-country have lauded the growth of the Afghan airmen in the three short years since they gained strike aircraft. Officials point to the Afghans\u2019 use of laser-guided bombs<\/a>, increased close-air attack capability and growing independence as a sign of hope for the war-torn country and overtaxed ground forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s yet to be definitively seen whether the first-world air force the United States has given to a third-world country will be the boon Afghanistan desperately needs, but the progress made so far is hard to ignore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, if Resolute Support<\/a> \u2014 the NATO-led mission to train, advise, and assist Afghan government forces \u2014 were to pull chocks tomorrow, and leave the country for good, the Afghan Air Force would be able to continue fighting on, according to officials who have trained and mentored the fledgling Afghan airmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the tactical level, the aviators would be able to employ just like they do every day,\u201d Lt. Col. Justin Williams, the 438th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron commander, told Air Force Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The whole [air attack] process is all Afghan at this point,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom the mission targeting packages, to weapons loading, to flying, to delivering ordnance, it’s an entirely Afghan process.”
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(Resolute Support’s TAAC-Air)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That independence was showcased this month by Afghanistan\u2019s A-29 Super Tucano light-attack aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a multi-day assault against the city of Farah<\/a> in western Afghanistan, the A-29s appeared to not just carry out gun runs against Taliban fighters, but also operate almost autonomously from Resolute Support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf note, Afghan A-29s conducted 20 hours of support to the Afghan-led offensive,\u201d Army Col. Robert Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was the first time Afghan A-29s flying from Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif conducted airstrikes, returned to those bases, were re-armed and re-fueled by Afghan maintainers, and then returned to conduct strikes,\u201d Manning added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthogs did fly to the city, they never had to drop weapons, although some armed U.S. drones did, according to officials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air-to-ground fires integration<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of the growing independence of pilots and maintainers, Afghan tactical air coordinators, or ATACs, facilitated the airstrikes from A-29s throughout the defense of Farah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ATACs are a growing specialty within the Afghan Air Force similar to American JTACs or joint terminal attack controllers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, \u201cwe can\u2019t call them JTACs,\u201d Brig. Gen. Phillip Stewart, commander of NATO\u2019s Train Advise Assist Command-Air, told Air Force Times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJTAC is a NATO term. For instance, the ATACs don\u2019t speak English. They speak Dari,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cAnd that cuts down on the training for them, because the Afghans fight in Dari; they don\u2019t fight in English,\u201d which is the official language of international aviation.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ATACs are members of the Afghan Air Force, but they embed within Afghan Army units to call in close-air attacks from the forward line of troops, or from an Afghan-run tactical operations center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another important difference between the ATAC and the American JTAC is that an ATAC doesn\u2019t have final release authority on weapons. That responsibility is owned by the Afghan pilot dropping bombs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, ATACs have become an important part of ground movements, as they frequently patrol with Afghan National Army units and provide targeting data to aircraft when they come under fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Afghan MD-530s land during a close air attack training scenario with Afghan tactical air coordinators. (Defense Department)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One asset they frequently use is the MD-530 Cayuse Warrior, a small but lethal attack helicopter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[MD-530s] are employed more often, and they strike more often to defend people in crisis, whereas the A-29 is more of a strategic asset striking specific targets,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By using ATACs to mark and identify targets for aircraft, airstrikes are more focused and collateral damage is minimized, especially in urban fights like Farah city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo my knowledge, there was no fratricide or civilian casualties,\u201d Stewart said of the battle to defend the western city near the Iranian border.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A-29s that responded to the Farah fight only employed their .50 caliber machine guns to strafe the enemy, and conducted low passes, known as shows-of-force, to scare off Taliban fighters \u2014 a tactic that works more often than one might first assume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the reason for that was because it was a very fluid situation,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cYou had the Taliban moving. You had Afghan police forces and Afghan National Army responding. You had civilians who were evacuating the area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a chaotic situation like that, the tendency for unprofessional forces is to just start dropping bombs everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precision guided weapons and night fights<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afghan attack pilots have gained a bit of a reputation for their cautious employment of weapons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report by the Pentagon\u2019s Inspector General found that from April to December 2016, \u201cAfghan A\u201129 pilots aborted 18 percent of their attacks against identified targets due to concerns about civilian casualties, fratricide or target identification.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sort of restraint is needed if the Afghan government wants to show it\u2019s better than the Taliban and is a legitimate force for the good of the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although civilian causalities were down overall in 2017, the United Nations still documented a 7 percent increase in civilian deaths from air operations specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery loss of civilian life is deeply regrettable. However, during a time when air operations dropped weapons 300 percent more than the previous year, civilian casualty rates didn\u2019t come close to matching that increase,\u201d a spokesman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In this Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, photo, Capt. Safia Ferozi, 26, right, and her husband Capt. Mohammad Jawad Najafi, 31, left, walk past a C-208 plane at the Afghan military airbase in Kabul, Afghanistan. From a childhood as a refugee, Capt. Safia Ferozi is now flying a transport plane for Afghanistan\u2019s air force as the country\u2019s second female pilot, a sign of the efforts to bring more women into the armed forces. Along the way, the 26-year-old Ferozi also married another pilot, Najafi, who flies in the same unit supporting army ground forces. (AP Photo\/Rahmat Gul)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A new-found capability on A-29s should help mitigate civilian deaths even more: laser guided weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, it\u2019s only the Afghans flying. It\u2019s all Afghans on combat ops,\u201d Maj. Paul \u201cOutlaw\u201d Atkinson, an Afghan Air Force A-29 adviser, told Air Force Times.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Afghan pilots will typically provide laser guidance for one another\u2019s bombs, commonly called a \u201cbuddy laze,\u201d but no American pilots are heading out with them to help in the final moments, Atkinson said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of May 11, A-29 pilots have supported roughly 30 Afghan ground missions with these precision weapons, and successfully dropped over 50 laser-guided bombs on enemy targets, according to TAAC-Air figures.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast fighting season [the Afghan pilots] didn\u2019t have the ability to drop laser-guided bombs or fly at night. This time they do,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThat\u2019s a deliberate training decision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the winter, some of the better Afghan pilots were sent to Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, to train on laser-guided bombs and night flying. Those individuals were upgraded to instructor pilots in order to train other Afghan pilots down the line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just training them, we\u2019re training their trainers,\u201d Stewart added.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some problems remain<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all of its success, there are still some hang-ups the Afghan Air Force needs to address if it wants to continue moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For one, approximately 80 percent of aircraft maintenance is still done by contractors, with the remaining 20 percent done by Afghan personnel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the next five years, part of the modernization program\u2019s goals are to reverse that,\u201d Williams said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it stands, the contractor\u2019s responsibility is to train up Afghan maintainers to eventually take over their roles. And while five years may sound excessive, Williams stressed that it\u2019s actually par for the course in terms of how long the U.S. Air Force waits to train a skilled maintainer of its own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt takes only about two years to create a pilot from scratch, [but] it takes about seven to 10 years to create what we would call a 7-level aircraft maintainer,\u201d Williams said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Afghan Air Force A-29 maintainers carefully maneuver an ejection seat February 14, 2018, at Kabul Air Wing, Afghanistan. Before removing ejection seats, AAF maintainers are trained to safely handle the explosives used to jettison the seat when activated. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jared J. Duhon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As for aviators, Afghan airmen who come up through the pilot training program are selected in a similar way as U.S. pilots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They start by going to fixed-wing pilot training in the United Arab Emirates or the Czech Republic, and then are selected based on merit to fly one of the fixed-wing platforms the Afghan Air Force maintains, including the C-208, C-130 and A-29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If they\u2019re selected for A-29 training, they go to Moody Air Force Base for roughly a year.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, moving more training to the pilots\u2019 home country will be pivotal. But some measure of NATO support will still be needed for years to come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future of the Afghan Air Force<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the Afghan Air Force is approximately 8,000 airmen strong, with more than 120 aircraft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But over the next five years, that force is essentially tripling in size, and the NATO mission will be needed to train those airmen up in \u201csome way, shape, or form,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere comes a time when they can do it on their own, but there\u2019s still value added to help them do it better,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Afghan Air Force currently operates roughly 20 of their A-29 aircraft in-country at any given time, and although that sounds small, it\u2019s actually enough, according to Stewart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s only one part of a suite of airplanes,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting 159 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, some of which will be fixed-forward firing. They\u2019re going to be doubling their MD-530 fleet and they\u2019re going to be getting a large number of reconnaissance aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The existing C-208 light cargo planes will be augmented by the AC-208 reconnaissance version, which will have a pod of 2.75-inch laser guided rockets on each wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo they\u2019re going to a have a very large strike fleet of aircraft, and not only that, but they\u2019re precision guided aircraft,\u201d he added. \u201c[The Afghans] are fighting an insurgency, and this will be enough aircraft for that fight.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the Afghan Air Force should have been kick-started sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, the rehabilitation really only began in 2010, with the arrival of the C-208 light cargo aircraft. And even then, it wasn\u2019t until 2015 that the Afghans gained the ability to conduct their own airstrikes with the help of the MD-530 helicopters, followed shortly by A-29 planes in 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken fully, it has been only two years since Afghan pilots were first able to conduct airstrikes from planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAir superiority provides a lot that would take an immense amount of technology for the Taliban to overcome,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThat being said, the Afghan Air Force is still growing. It\u2019s really only two years old. We\u2019ve given [one of the] poorest, most uneducated countries on the planet a first-world air force. That takes some time and speed bumps to overcome, and they\u2019ve done excellent, but they\u2019re still in their infancy.\u201d
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