Combat aircraft

management required from the C-130 in

austere low performance conditions.’

When Combat Aircraft visited the 192nd

AS the October class was running. This

brought one C-130H2 and a crew from

the 357th AS at Maxwell-Gunter AFB,

Alabama, and two C-130Js from the 815th

AS at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. Units bring

their own aircraft, but the Nevada ANG

instructors ride along with them as they

build their own experience. Bravo says,

‘They’re not used to operating the aircraft

in this demanding environment. This

course is a safe place for the crews to learn

and reduce mishaps.’

The course

The local terrain around Reno — the

Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin —

o ers environments that are nearly

identical to the operational theaters of

Asia and Africa. Bravo says the AMATS

course is all about low-level dynamics

and understanding the environmental

and performance factors when  ying in

terrain at high elevations. Students are

taught to trust their  ying manuals and

performance charts. ‘Some of the peaks

around here are upwards of 13,000ft,’ says

Bravo. ‘That means a low-level sortie here

in terms of pressure altitude can be over

6,000ft, sometimes as much as 11,000ft.

Rule number one is: you don’t  y into an

objective area that you can’t get out of.’

As Jaquish describes, ‘We introduce

TTPs in a building-block approach in

environmental conditions unique to Reno

and unlike anything students have seen

before. The  rst place to get introduced

to these conditions is not in combat, it

is in the safe training environment that

Reno provides.’

The 328th AS from Niagara Falls was

the  rst unit to visit Reno for training in

2012. It brought three aircraft and four
      crews as part of pre-deployment training.
      ‘They came here for an Afghanistan
      deployment course,’ says Jaquish. ‘We
      had some threat reaction/avoidance as
      well, with kill boxes to avoid. From that
       rst iteration we started developing
      things and it matured into a tactics safety
      course. Now, the  rst class they receive
      — other than local familiarization — is
      about  ying safety. What we teach is not
      about maximum performance in the
      mountains; it’s about how to e ectively
      and safely execute the TTPs.’

Above: The

imposing

Sierra Nevada

mountains frame

this ‘High Rollers’

C-130H3 on a

mission from

Reno.

Left: Learning

how to manage

the performance

of the C-130 is the

central job of the

AMATS course.

It tends to lead

the ‘High Rollers’

instructors into

some challenging

terrain.

UNIT REPORT // ADVANCED MOUNTAIN AIRLIFT TACTICS

54 March 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

52-57 AMATS C.indd 54 19/01/2018 15:10