23 Squadron Has Left The Nest; Collects Iraqis From Training In UAE

The Iraqi Air Force passed an important milestone in its reconstitution on April 1st, when the first international airlift mission was flown by an Iraqi crew in a C-130 from 23 Squadron, IAF, at Tallil.

The flight to the UAE was highly appropriate, as it was this Gulf sheikhdom that donated the C-130s to Iraq. But it was a practical mission as well, picking up 51 Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement soldiers who had completed training in the United Arab Emirates and bringing them back home.

Previous missions, to Jordan for instance, have included Coalition trainers as check airmen. On this flight, to the UAE, Coalition airmen were only aboard as observers. The five-man Iraqi crew ably performed flight planning, mission preparation, international ADIZ clearance, and all other tasks without foreign intervention.

The crew included two pilots, a flight engineer, a navigator, and a loadmaster.

23 Squadron has a long and proud history as a transport squadron in the Iraqi Air Force, serving in that capacity in 1965, but the airmen never had used a C-130 before January 2005. For most of their careers they had flown Antonov types, but they adapted rapidly to the C-130s with training provided in Jordan by the Royal Jordanian Air Force and in Iraq by the Multinational Security Transition Command - Iraq.

Selected Iraqi airmen have come to the United States for further training, including on C-130 flight simulators, a training aid that their nation doesn't yet possess.

Coalition forces took the photographs accompanying this article in January at the formal handover of the C-130s. The airplane is tail code YI-303 of 23 Squadron. The two Iraqi officers are Lt. Gen. Nasir Al-Abadi, deputy chief of staff, Iraqi Armed Forces (at microphone) and Maj. Gen. Kamal Al-Barzanjy, Iraqi Air Force commander (back partially turned).

Along with the C-130s of 23 Squadron, the Iraqi AF is currently operating several other types, including UH-1H Huey helicopters, CH2000 Alarus training and utility planes (built under license in Jordan), Seabird SBL7/360 Seeker surveillance aircraft, and CompAir 7SL turboprop utility aircraft.

FMI: www.mnstci.iraq.centcom.mil