The latest iteration of Jolly Vihar noticed three Pave Hawks from Aviano Air Base, Italy, deploy to Pápa Air Base, Hungary.
From June 26 to July 7, 2023, three HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters belonging to the 56th Rescue Squadron from Aviano Air Base, Italy, took half in Jolly Vihar 23-2, an train specializing in CSAR (Fight Search And Rescue) and dwell fireplace missions.
“Train Jolly Vihar is aimed to boost the U.S. and Hungarian forces’ capability to conduct built-in fight search and rescue situations and carry out upkeep operations. This train advantages the 56th RQS [Rescue Squadron] and 56th RGS [Rescue Generation Squadron] together with NATO ally and companion nations by enhancing interoperability whereas studying one another’s methods, methods and procedures,” says a public release by the thirty first Fighter Wing at Aviano AB.
The 23-2 version was the third bilateral train and the second this yr: a earlier iteration was carried out in February this yr whereas the one earlier than dated again to August 2022. The following is scheduled for September – October 2023.
As talked about, three helicopters deployed to Pápa Air Base; every day solely two had been concerned within the drills. US and Hungarian troopers had been used as function gamers, for MEDEVAC and CSAR. The coaching actions had been carried out on the Bakony coaching and firing vary. GAU-18 machine weapons, appropriate towards gentle targets, with round 4,800 rounds used every day.
Hungarian JTACs (Joint Terminal Assault Controllers) took half within the train too, coordinating the air actions on the firing vary
The helicopters flew 6-7 day by day sorties on the vary, every lasting 5-10 minutes. They had been re-armed on the bottom after each sortie, with out engine cease. No evening flying passed off in the course of the train.
“The aim of train Jolly Vihar for the 56th Rescue Squadron is terminal employment,” stated U.S. Air Power Tech. Sgt. Kayleigh Jones, 56th RQS particular missions aviator teacher. “This can be a nice time for aircrew to follow issue risk evaluation as a result of we by no means know what squadron or unit we’re going to be working with. The extra we combine, the higher we will facilitate personnel restoration throughout Europe.” In keeping with the USAF, airmen assigned to Aviano AB and Pápa AB acted as pink cells in the course of the search and rescue missions. Purple cells are function gamers whose objective is to current issues that the aircrew should clear up as a group. Norwegian forces on every plane fulfilled the function of a pararescue group. Their job was to assist to mitigate threats and safely get better pink cells with info relayed to them and the aircrew. In keeping with Jones, working with the Norwegian forces improves cohesion with the information discovered from each other. This can be utilized to real-world conditions.
Check out the next fascinating video shot by Benedek Levente exhibiting the Pave Hawks at work within the vary throughout Jolly Vihar:
David Cenciotti is a journalist based mostly in Rome, Italy. He’s the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of many world’s most well-known and skim army aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for main worldwide magazines, together with Air Forces Month-to-month, Fight Plane, and lots of others, overlaying aviation, protection, battle, business, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown a number of fight planes with totally different air forces. He’s a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Power, a non-public pilot and a graduate in Laptop Engineering. He has written 5 books and contributed to many extra ones.
