The U.S. general in charge of rebuilding Afghanistan's decimated air corps said Thursday that it will be at least 2013 before the force is ready to fly combat missions now done by foreign airmen.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Jay Lindell said the fledgling 8-year rebuilding program is suffering from a lack of aircraft and spare parts and a relatively old corps of Afghan pilots, some of whom haven't flown in 15 years. Afghanistan hasn't trained a new pilot since 1992, he said.
"It'll take many years to develop the Afghan air corps," said Lindell, who commands the 130-member U.S. and Canadian team assigned to the project.
"We're well on our way," he said, noting the program started last spring now has some two dozen planes and helicopters and that Afghans are flying daily supply and transport missions. He said those are the most urgent and critical needs right now of Afghan ground forces, who are taking on an increasing role in the battle against the Taliban.
The U.S. and NATO-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan depends heavily on Western air power to transport troops to remote battlefields and to target militants in bombing missions.
Afghan pilots "are picking up every day more and more of the mission" that foreign forces used to fly, Lindell said. But training in those transport missions — and others such as medical evacuations — will remain the focus for the next few years.
The force won't be trained until 2013 or 2014 to play combat roles such as providing close air support for the Afghan National Army soldiers, Lindell told Pentagon reporters via videoconference from Kabul.
The size of the fleet will build slowly to 61 aircraft by 2011, he said. The NATO-US training mission has set a goal of rebuilding the corps to 112 aircraft — including some two dozen attack planes — and a 7,400-person air force by 2015, he said.
"It's not just air frames that we have to acquire," Lindell said "It's obviously the training of the pilots in this close air support role."
Lindell said that although Afghan pilots are very competent and can fly the missions they are assigned, their average age is 43 and many are nearing mandatory retirement.
Some of the pilots now flying will have to be pulled off duty for English language lessons, as well, he said.
Lindell hopes next year to start training 48 pilots a year.
"We plan to bring this air corps up to date with Western technology and do business similar to how ... the U.S. Air Force (does) and teach them close air support so they can take over this mission in Afghanistan," he said.
Afghanistan once had a strong air force that included hundreds of helicopters and Soviet-built MiG-21 and Su-22 warplanes. But that fleet was devastated by two decades of war.
Calling the event the "birth of our air force," Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week opened a new $22 million U.S.-funded military hangar opposite Kabul's international airport.
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