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Air Mobility Force Train Vital Flying Skills

The Air Mobility Force have been developing the skillsets of frontline Atlas A400M crews on Exercise Venture Spirit in Scotland.

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Basing out of RAF Lossiemouth for the week, Atlas Pilots and Air Loadmasters trained for a mixture of essential frontline skills, including low level flying and air dropping of light stores. The exercise was an opportunity for less experienced air crew to qualify in operating in non-permissive environments, while developing the competency and currency of frontline crews in tactical flying skills.

The Air Mobility Force have been developing the skillsets of frontline Atlas A400M crews on Exercise Venture Spirit in Scotland.

Predominantly focusing on the skillset of Atlas aircrew, the exercise also incorporated other elements of the Air Mobility Force based at RAF Brize Norton, working alongside other aircraft types including C-17, C-130. 

The Air Mobility Force have been developing the skillsets of frontline Atlas A400M crews on Exercise Venture Spirit in Scotland.

Flight Lieutenant Jamie Jackson, A400M Frontline Flying Instructor on 30 Squadron said:

“Operating out of RAF Lossiemouth allows us to simulate working away from our main operating base. We’ve been operating from a harden air shelter, simulating that we’ve deployed to another country and are working without all the usual support facilities that we would normally have at RAF Brize Norton. It tests us to remain flexible and self-sufficient while mounting out of an unusual location. Developing the air crew as they go through the training has been a rewarding experience. It takes a lot of challenging skillsets to take a large aircraft like the Atlas into simulated threat environments; however, the aircrew completed the exercise and qualified to safely take the A400M to support defence globally.”

Flight Lieutenant Jamie Jackson
Number 30 Squadron RAF

The Air Mobility Force have been developing the skillsets of frontline Atlas A400M crews on Exercise Venture Spirit in Scotland.

The exercise extended across the UK, utilising a Temporary Landing Zone at RAF Wittering and coincided with RAF Brize Norton based 38 Expeditionary Air Wing (38EAW) on Exercise Agile Eagle at RAF Leeming. 38 EAW are an Air Mobility specialist EAW, training for rapid reaction to global humanitarian disasters. Aircraft flying on Exercise Venture Spirit incorporated their training into scenarios during Ex Agile Eagle, enabling both exercises to maximise use of the Air Mobility fleet.

The Air Mobility Force have been developing the skillsets of frontline Atlas A400M crews on Exercise Venture Spirit in Scotland.

Wing Commander Phil Foster, Officer Commanding 38 EAW, was charged with leading the team through Headquarters decisions, combined with real-time air movements of the A400M. He said:

“We've been doing a lot of virtual work online to get ourselves ready for deployment, but this is the first time physically we've come together. In the back of your mind, you're always trying to work out what could be thrown at you and to have those challenges set to you within a training environment is really valuable. You can run through how you would deal with them.

“Some of the officers are quite junior and are doing jobs that they're not even trained to do, but they’re getting stuck in, which is good to see. It's good to see them being stretched and know, realising their own abilities. This week is about developing a level of confidence and trust in your people, which is very valuable.”

Wing Commander Phil Foster
Officer Commanding 38 EAW

 

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