# Afghanistan Air Traffic



## AWP (Sep 13, 2015)

In a story probably few of you care about:

Afghanistan enhances airspace management capacity

I just want to give a shout out to the author(s) for writing a superb piece of fiction. This move was solely about putting money into Afghanistan's pockets and has nothing to do with safety or "capacity enhancements." Both are fiction because both are impossible given the sorry, sorry state of the Afghan equipment. Where did that come from? America! Why doesn't it work? Afghanistan. Fuel for generators? Siphoned off or not delivered. Spare parts for radar? HAHAHAHAHA! Outsource the maintenance to the lowest bidder? Done and pay no attention to the 80+% attrition rate of the maintainers and air traffic controllers. Wait a minute, there's a plan?



> A next major milestone for the ACAA is the training of fully qualified air traffic controllers, another complex and challenging aspect of Afghanistan’s airspace administration. Plans are underway for the implementation of an Afghan air traffic controller training program.



BWAHAHAHAHAHA! "Training?" We have tried that going back to 2006 or so. Total number trained by 2013? 8. Total needed? Over 40. Who will run the mission under the Afghan gov't? Americans! That's right, we're still footing a portion of the bill and US contractors are doing the work.



> Before last month’s agreement, a complex collection of airspace control measures were used to deconflict civil and military air traffic, according to U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jared Asman, a senior advisor with the Civil Aviation Transition Branch of NATO Air Command – Afghanistan.



That may be the case on paper. In the real world, not so much. If anything the transition has made the process more complex as we dump DoD comm for Afghan commercial comm. There's still deconfliction needed between civ and mil flights, so we'll just do that via local phones. Brilliant! The process is more convoluted now to boot, adding at least one extra group of airmen to coordinate, but let's make some money.



> “Afghanistan will continue to collect overflight revenue from commercial flights into and over Afghanistan’s airspace,” said West. “The revenue is sufficient for GIRoA to pay for future airspace control contracts while it develops indigenous, civil-servant capacity to perform air traffic control duties.”



Pure propaganda. I shared this at work and lulz were had all around.


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## Brill (Sep 13, 2015)

Freefalling said:


> This move was solely about putting money into Afghanistan's pockets and has nothing to do with safety or "capacity enhancements."



Exactly like funding covert programs in the 80's that enraged taxpayers when they saw toilet seats that "cost" $800.  Purely accounting games...like the Clinton Foundation.


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## AWP (Sep 14, 2015)

"Hey, do you guys need this radar link?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"We already cut it."
"Fuck it, we'll do it live and go with procedural control. Hey! Our phones don't work!"
"Yeah, about those phones..."


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## busdriver (Sep 15, 2015)

I hope I never have to fly in that place again.  So let's wrap that shit up before I finish this staff gig.....


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## AWP (Sep 16, 2015)

On a side note, did you know there are days where we have more .mil air traffic over Afghanistan than Iraq/ Syria combined?


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## DA SWO (Sep 16, 2015)

Freefalling said:


> On a side note, did you know there are days where we have more .mil air traffic over Afghanistan than Iraq/ Syria combined?


Drones shouldn't count


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## AWP (Sep 16, 2015)

DA SWO said:


> Drones shouldn't count



#dronelivesmatter

#don'tdronemebro


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## Il Duce (Sep 16, 2015)

This was early 2014, so things have likely shifted, but I was told then that our ISR fleet over AF was the 6th largest air force in the world.  One of the strongest pressures on downsizing and going to a small footprint in RS was the demand of other GCCs was overhead ISR.


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