USAF, BAF exercise in Dhaka

The US and Bangladesh Air Forces have started their week-long joint annual exercise at Bangabandhu Air Base in Dhaka on Saturday.

Styled ‘Cope South-2015’, it is the fourth of its kind of bilateral exercise that mostly focus on conducting tactical airlift operations to ensure better disaster response which is “crucial” for Bangladesh.

This is a Pacific Air Forces-sponsored exercise in which 80 US airmen from the 36th Airlift Squadron and 374th Airlift Wing, of the US air base in Japan’s Yokota joined along with three C-130H Hercules aircraft.

C-130 is regarded as the best transport aircraft in the world.

Bangladesh has also deployed one of its four C-130 for the exercise with 200 airmen.

Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) Group Captain MA Awal Hossain said this was a rigorous exercise to perfect and augment airlift capabilities and enhancement of operation and maintenance capability for them.

“Bangladesh is a flood prone country and we have been enhancing our capability so that we can drop men and materials in a disaster zone quickly and easily to support locals,” he said, briefing journalists after the inauguration.

“We have learnt a lot from them (from previous exercises),” he said.

Air Officer Commanding of BAF Bangabandhu Base Air-Vice Marshal Naim Hassan inaugurated the exercise and stressed on “good friendship” between the forces for better response to any situation.

One of the features of the C-130 is that it can transport troops and equipment in the combat zone via airdrop using short runways.

Bangladesh has deployed one of its C-130s for its relatively challenging UN mission in Congo.

Commander of the US’s 36th Airlift Squadron Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Campbell said their focus would be on improving the “interoperability” between the two forces.

The ultimate aim is “peace, security and stability” of the region, he said.

He said this exercise offered the US air force “opportunity to improve our own tactical capabilities”.

“I have many younger crews. This is an opportunity for my squadron to gain some very valuable training.

“We are lucky to be able to do that,” he said.

“We begin to build the bonds that enable us to respond together and operate shoulder to shoulder in response to any kind of natural disaster and rescue situation”.

BAF has carried out 38 different types of exercises including the Cope South with the US since the beginning in 1990.

Two of them were outside Bangladesh in Qatar and Malaysia.

BAF Squadron Leader HM Kyesher Ahmed said this year’s Cope South exercise would involve fighters unlike previous exercises.

Airmen of the two forces will jointly try out airlift, air-land and airdrop delivery tactics, techniques and procedures, as well as develop and expand combined airlift capabilities, during the exercise.

They will also conduct cooperative flight operations.

Aircraft generation and recovery, day and night low-level navigation, tactical airdrop, and air-land missions, maintenance and rigging disciplines will be the highlights of the exercise, the US embassy in Dhaka had earlier said.

Apart from Bangabandhu air base, they will also use the north-eastern air base in Sylhet for the exercise that will end on Jan 30.