LCol Jeff Smyth
The most exhilarating moments I've ever spent in the air have been in a helicopter. Specifically, one low and fast ride in a CH-135 Twin Huey back at RMC, and more recently, a couple of jaunts between KAF and Camp Nathan Smith (if you haven't watched the shaky video at that previous link, I heartily recommend it). On a less visceral level, I appreciate the fact that Tac Hel's entire focus is on facilitating the operations of another element; it's the most service-oriented pointy-end part of the CF, in my opinion.
So I was thrilled to speak recently with LCol Jeff Smyth by Skype from Kandahar Air Field. Not only is he the CO of 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron in Edmonton, but he's also currently Commanding Officer of the Canadian Helicopter Force (Afghanistan). The videos below are about twenty-two minutes long in total, and touch on everything from the type of training and missions Smyth's Griffon and Chinook crews are flying, to little known Air Force interactions with the fledgling ANA Air Corps, to the reliability of the helicopters under his command - a couple of which might have flown in Vietnam!
I also think it's notable that Smyth's choppers have moved, on average, 2800 troops and 170,000 lbs of cargo - or over 300 trucks' worth - per month this past year. That's a lot of personnel and materiel put out of the reach of the insurgency's biggest weapon: IEDs.
Pay no attention to the stumbling Dr. Evil stand-in asking the questions.
More on our helo crews' participation in recent air-mobile operations recently:
A big thank you to this busy pilot and leader for taking the time to speak with me, and to the PAffOs at CEFCOM and KAF who facilitated the interview.
So I was thrilled to speak recently with LCol Jeff Smyth by Skype from Kandahar Air Field. Not only is he the CO of 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron in Edmonton, but he's also currently Commanding Officer of the Canadian Helicopter Force (Afghanistan). The videos below are about twenty-two minutes long in total, and touch on everything from the type of training and missions Smyth's Griffon and Chinook crews are flying, to little known Air Force interactions with the fledgling ANA Air Corps, to the reliability of the helicopters under his command - a couple of which might have flown in Vietnam!
I also think it's notable that Smyth's choppers have moved, on average, 2800 troops and 170,000 lbs of cargo - or over 300 trucks' worth - per month this past year. That's a lot of personnel and materiel put out of the reach of the insurgency's biggest weapon: IEDs.
Pay no attention to the stumbling Dr. Evil stand-in asking the questions.
More on our helo crews' participation in recent air-mobile operations recently:
“This is the shit,” declared Lieutenant-Colonel Jeff Smyth, the officer in charge of Canadian helicopter operations in Afghanistan [more here on the choppers], in an interview at Kandahar Air Field ahead of the operation. “In my career, in 21 years, this is what I've been training the entire time for. This is the big show for us.”
A big thank you to this busy pilot and leader for taking the time to speak with me, and to the PAffOs at CEFCOM and KAF who facilitated the interview.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 5:48 p.m.
2 Comments:
There is currently an article at the CTV website entitled "Troops to leave Afghanistan in August: Dutch PM"
I attempted to post a comment, using both my Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and IE 8 browsers. In both cases, the comment didn't go anywhere after I hit the Submit button. The error message in my Mozilla Error Console gave some unhelpful information.
Now, far be it from me to just assume that CTV would screen out American DNS numbers, a relatively easy task for their web administrators to do... Here's my comment, and attempted submission that didn't.
"And, besides the Dutch, the Canadians now also leave their Allies & the Afghans in the lurch.
If the Afghan liberation & reconstruction was worth starting, under UN auspices & request of the elected Afghan Govt, it's also morally imperative to see through to victory, not to a politically expedient calender date.
I have great respect for the men and women of the CF, who did not make this decision. However, to the many spineless Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister Harper, & to the Canadian MSM for their almost universal & non-stop misrepresentation of the Afghan conflict, shame on you all."
"(me)
(address and email addy required and provided)"
Alpha plus to Dr Evil. Now we need a mini-me gun for the helos.
Mark
Ottwa
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