40th CAB Knocks Out Second ATX

Photo By Darriel Swatts | Spc David Nanez, fire support specialist with the 40th CAB, and Spc Anthony Morales, aviation operations specialist with the 40th CAB, work on a simulated 9-line that just came in during the Aviation Training Exercise held at Fort Rucker, Ala.  

FORT RUCKER, AL, UNITED STATES

01.15.2011

Story by 1st Lt. Jason Sweeney 

40th Combat Aviation Brigade

FORT RUCKER, Ala. – Soldiers from the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade showed up at Fort Rucker Jan. 15 ready to get their ATX on.

The aviation training exercise brought together the brigade headquarters staff and five battalion staff sections over a week and allowed them to run through various scenarios that the aviation brigade may encounter during its yearlong deployment in Iraq.

The brigade completed the ATX on Jan. 21 and passed it with flying colors, clearing the way for its departure to Iraq where it will be responsible for full-spectrum aviation operations for much of 2011 in support of Operation New Dawn.

The ATX was held at Ft. Rucker’s high-tech Aviation Warfighter Simulation Center, where CAB pilots flew virtual helicopters over a virtual Iraq while the brigade’s commander, Col. Mitch Medigovich, put his staff through the paces.

The brigade had completed a pre-mobilization ATX at the same location in March. The latest ATX came nearly two months into the CAB’s mobilization and a week before its main body departs for Iraq.

“It’s fairly complex,” Medigovich said of the exercise, explaining that the brigade had just come off a weeklong mobilization readiness exercise at Fort Hood, Texas, while simultaneously sending advanced parties to Kuwait and undergoing a load out of equipment and aircraft.

“Everybody’s doing well,” Medigovich said. “They’re battle focused. They’re getting it done.”

During the ATX, the brigade staff and staff sections at the battalion level worked together as they ran through various battle drills, such as running missions with Special Forces, responding to downed aircraft and transporting high-level government officials.

“Think of this exercise as if the brigade commander could take his entire brigade into the field. That is what this replicates,” said Lt. Col. Gregory Williams, chief of operations for the Directorate of Simulation, which runs the flight simulators and tactical operations centers that make up the Aviation Warfighter Simulation Center.

The center can simulate having up to 18 aircraft in the air at once, allowing the staff sections to rehearse some of the most complex and dangerous situations possible.

Chief Warrant 3 Trevor Robinson, a company standardization pilot for Charlie Company, 8-229th Aviation Regiment, which is the attack arm of the 40th CAB, said flying an AH-64 Apache in the simulator doesn’t compare to the real thing, but that the value comes in being able to practice operations with other types of aircraft and with the staff sections.

“The pilots are here to fly missions to give the staff sections training on everything that happens over there, and just basically let them see how things are going to be and help them develop a battle rhythm,” Robinson said. “It’s good for collective training. And of course, if an aircraft crashes, there’s no loss of life.”

“The ATX has given us the opportunity to work with the other units that we will work with in Iraq,” said Maj. Tyler Hemmerich, the operations officer for the 8-229th. “It allowed us to understand one another a little bit better and get on the same page operationally before we actually go in country and do the mission.”

The exercise was overseen by First Army Division West’s 166th Aviation Brigade from Ft. Hood. The 166th Aviation Brigade is responsible for all Army Reserve and National Guard aviation mobilization training and validation for deployment.

“It’s a well-trained unit,” Col. Lawrence Madkins, commander of the 166th Aviation Brigade, said of the 40th CAB. “It’s going to go and do the task and mission that our nation has asked it to do in this critical year—the last year of the current security agreement with the government of Iraq. They will represent our nation very well.”

• Date Taken: 01.15.2011
• Date Posted: 03.30.2011 12:09
• Story ID: 67995
• Location: FORT RUCKER, AL, US