KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan air force personnel will no longer receive training in the United States on flying and maintaining their A-29 Super Tucano turboprop attack aircraft, the Air Force said.
For the past five years, Afghan students have been trained by instructors from the 81st Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. The program graduated its final class on Nov. 13th, the Air Force said in a statement Tuesday. All future A-29 training will be conducted in Afghanistan by local instructors, it said.
“Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our partnership,” Kelli Seybolt, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for international affairs, said in the statement. “We are committed to the continued support of this program in order to strengthen independent Afghan capabilities and achieve sustained peace.”
More than 30 pilots and 70 maintenance technicians have graduated since the program at Moody began in 2015. It was scheduled to end in 2018 but was extended through this year.
American advisers assigned to the program were mostly drawn from A-10 pilots who needed training of their own on the twin-seat A-29 before instructing Afghan flyers. After providing introductory instruction to the Afghans at Moody, the advisers would deploy to Afghanistan to provide additional mentoring.
Afghanistan received its first A-29s from the U.S. in early 2016 as part of international efforts to build the country’s fledgling air force. Training to fly, and especially maintain, most of the force’s aircraft is still needed, U.S. and Afghan officials have said.
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