C-130, crew deploy to India for historic bilateral exercise

National Guard, Nov 2002 by Law, James

Hawaii

It's a long way to India from Honolulu especially on a small, propeller-driven cargo plane.

But that's the distance a 154th Wing C-130 Hercules and its 13-person crew traveled last month to participate in the largest U.S. Air Force and Indian air force interaction since the Kennedy administration.

Cope India was a Pacific Air Forcesponsored airlift exercise designed to improve interoperability between the two nations. The Hawaii Air Guardsmen joined about 130 active-duty U.S. Air Force members and four more C130s for the one-week event.

"It's been a great experience for all of us," said Maj. Jim Yuki, C-130 aircraft commander. "To have the chance to be here in India to train with the Indian air force and to experience some of the culture of this country is amazing."

Yuki and his crew hosted Indian observers on all their missions to discuss C-130 features and procedures. The Indian air force uses the smaller, Russian-made AN-32 aircraft for shortto-medium range airlift missions.

"It was a bit crowded [with the observers]," said Master Sgt. Thomas Varaez, flight engineer. "But they were very knowledgeable about the instrumentation, very inquisitive and curious about how we fly."

Among the missions were paratrooper drops. There was some initial confusion during the first drop, in part because the two nations employ different procedures, including a different number of jumpmasters.

But the issues were quickly resolved and subsequent drops ran like clockwork, said Staff Sgt. Kimo McKee, one of two Guard loadmasters on the trip.

"They understood where we [the loadmasters] needed to be," he said. "And by the time we did our second run to drop another 60 paratroopers, the jumps were a lot smoother and quicker-just like back home."

In the end, pilots and crews from both nations agreed that there were more similarities to how each service does business than differences.

"Many of the procedures were similar," said Flying Officer (equivalent to a lieutenant) Saurav Dattagupta, an observer on one cargo-drop mission. However, "the C-130 is more maneuverable than the AN-32."

-By Major James Law