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Africa command trains local airmen

Uganda’s air arm doesn’t own any planes. What the pilots fly, a civilian version of the C-130, belong to a private company.

In L-100s, the Ugandan airmen deliver troops and humanitarian aid. They don’t know how to perform airdrops, though — a real problem because their eastern Africa nation has so few landing strips and roads.

Still, the U.S. Air Force sees potential in its fledgling counterpart. Sixteen airmen from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and two Army reservists spent five days in Entebbe, Uganda, providing a first-hand look at how the Air Force delivers supplies in a crisis.

In the year since U.S. Air Forces Africa stood up, the command has performed more than 30 missions in such nations as Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Namibia, Libya and Mali. In August, active-duty Air Force and Tennessee Air National Guard members helped restore a Nigerian C-130.

Next year, the number of missions will be 80, estimates Maj. John Yocum, branch chief of U.S. Air Force’s Africa Theater Security Cooperation program.

Many of those missions will be like the one this summer in Uganda — training sessions to develop the African air forces.

For 17th Air Force, training and building partnerships remain top priorities, said Brig. Gen. Michael W. Callan, vice commander of 17th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Africa. They also are the areas in which African militaries need the most help, according to William M. Bellamy, ambassador to Kenya from 2003 to 2006 and now director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University in Washington.

The African Union has organized troops to respond to humanitarian disasters and peacekeeping missions but many times couldn’t get them there and had to call in the Air Force, Bellamy said. Training missions like the ones to Uganda should reduce and eventually eliminate the need for the African Union to rely on outside support.

“We’re helping them develop the capacity to help themselves,” Callan said.

Through its training sessions, the Air Force also is building long-term relationships with the African Union. The investment of time, dollars and manpower proves America’s dedication to Africa, Bellamy said.

U.S. Air Force Africa command doesn’t have operational forces assigned to it, though. For each event inside Africa, the command must send airmen from other units, Yocum said. It makes it difficult to prepare airmen and to bring continuity to the program.

“That is one of the issues we are trying to get our arms around. ... We want to better prepare our airmen for not just what they need to know, but to better understand the context of where they are going,” Yocum said.

The command wants airmen who have lived in Africa or have studied Africa, and is working with the Pentagon to identify and recruit them, Callan said. They would bring continuity as well as build trust with African airmen, Yocum said.

“When the airmen arrive, the first questions they get are about their family. They want to learn about your family because they want to trust you. If we had the same airmen come back it would help get past square one and allow both parties to have a starting point to jump into training,” Yocum said.

Many of the airmen who fulfilled the first missions for U.S. Air Forces Africa came from U.S. Air Forces Europe, the command that was responsibile for African missions before Oct. 1, 2008.

U.S. Air Forces Africa faces the same challenges USAFE faced — mainly the limited resources of the African air forces.

“As much as you give us knowledge, what we really need is equipment,” Maj. George Nambafu, an officer in the Ugandan air force, said in a news release. “Even used equipment would be welcome. When you go and take these materials with you, we will have nothing to practice on. Knowledge without practice is not productive.”

Training is a start, though.

“If it were to only train and develop African militaries it would mark a huge step forward and justify the establishment of the command,” Bellamy said.