AVIATION IN PROFILE NORTH AMERICAN T-2 BUCKEYE
With the area’s mountains forming a picturesque backdrop, T-2E Buckeye, s/n 160063/63 comes in to land at Kalamata Air Base. (Ioannis Lekkas)
Buckeye as the lead-in trainer for the F-16C/D block 52+ Operational Conversion Unit, which has proved to be rather inadequate, now after fighter pilots have graduated from the 120 PEA they tend to go to A-7E Corsairs or as backseaters on F-4E Phantoms.
Over the years Nos 335 and 336
Squadrons flying the A-7E and H Corsairs filled out this gap. These aircraft performed primarily in their role as strike/attack
and fulfilled a secondary mission, that of the LIFT. This role is about preparing HAF Academy pilot graduates transition through a second generation aircraft to the different blocks of F-16s like the F-16C/D and F-16C/D block 52+. There has also been a further HAF Academy entry change with the Euro-training group of European Air Forces (EU-AFA). Through the EU-AFA approach and
exchange of ideas, the HAF Academy wanted to bolster the capabilities of new pilot graduates by increasing the number of flight hours allocated. The flight hours that new pilots log vary somewhere between 255-265, plus some 65 hours in flight simulators, which was deemed rather low to create adequate confidence in a fourth generation fighter cockpit.
Via these necessary and
modernising steps, HAF Training Command has agreed to co- operate with the Armée de l’Air (AdlA, French Air Force) Training Command and the Aeronautica Militare (AM, Italian Air Force). A Memorandum of Understanding was signed for training of Greek student pilots coming out of the HAF Academy with the French Air Force upgraded Alpha Jets. With this ambitious step the gap described about the introduction of the HAF Academy graduates into third generation fighter cockpits would be smoother.
The first step was undertaken in
November 2010 when three AdlA Alpha Jet Es from Escadron
During July 2013 the HAF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Evangelos Tournas and the Commanding Officer of No 363 Training Squadron, Lt Col Panagiotis Kotsiakis, flew in the T-2E Buckeye s/n 160084 painted in the squadron’s anniversary scheme to highlight the 40 year service of this training squadron in the HAF. (via No 363 Squadron HAF).
d'Entrainement 02-002 visited Kalamata Air Base. This training was under a Squadron Exchange level with mixed formations of Alpha Jets and Buckeyes from No 362 Squadron with mixed crews.
In the meantime the Italian Air
Force and the Hellenic Air Force Training Command co-operated in an Instructor Pilot Exchange programme as well as a student pilot exchange. In this programme three HAF Instructors were detached to Lecce and three Aeronautica Militare IPs were stationed at Kalamata.
Throughout this programme a
few HAF student pilots got used to the more advanced instrumentation of the MB-339C/D from which they could eventually make the transition to the F-16C/D or Mirage 2000EGM/BGM or 2000-5 cockpits without the need to log hours in A-7E Corsairs, nor the need from HAF to buy an advanced jet trainer.
NB: The author would like to
thank the Commanding Officer of No 362 Training Squadron Lt Col Panagiotis Kotsiakis, Lt Col Demitrios Peponis and Nikolaos Karmaniolas, for their assistance in the compilation of this article.
In flight shot of a T-2 taken from another Buckeye.
FEBRUARY 2015 • VOLUME 36 • ISSUE 12 49
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