7th AAT PTC (Smart Defence) opens in Zemunik
The 7th Air Advisory Team Pre-deployment Training Course, preparing the Croatian and Hungarian air teams for the mentoring of Afghanistan Air Force members
commenced in the 93rd Croatian Air Force and Air Defence Base at Zemunik on 2 June 2014, following the customary training completed in Ostrava, the Czech Republic in May on the Mi-171Sh simulator.
The flying segment includes advanced flight training conducted on the Croatian Mi-171 Sh and Mi-8 MTV helicopters and the live-fire shooting from helicopter by waist gunners at the Helicopter Range «Crvena zemlja» near Knin.
The Course was postponed, as the Course administrator – a Croatian pilot, Captain Dalibor Ivelja reminded, because of the Croatian Air Force crews’ deployment in flood relief operations in Slavonia and in the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Czech pilots remained at home to complete their previously planned training cycle at the national level.
The Course was co-designed by the Croatian and Czech teams, with the advisory support from the U.S. Special Operations Command Europe and has been accepted and filed as a NATO’s „Smart Defence“ project. (see on-line magazine on Smart Defence projects in Zemunik (in Croatian).