Latest update January 20th, 2025 4:00 AM
Tradewinds’ exercises to help GDF perform missions with $414M Bell helicopter
Kaieteur News – Tradewinds 2021, which is currently being hosted by Guyana may actually help to enhance its Defence Force’s capability in performing missions with the recently procured $414M Bell 412 EPI helicopter.
GDF Lieutenant Dwight Bonus
Ranks being coached on how to service and maintain Guyana’s Bell 412EPI helicopter
GDF ranks training with the US Army. (DPI Photo)
The Bell Helicopter in the hanger of the London Airbase at Timehri.
At least this is what Kaieteur News had observed after the media on Friday got a firsthand look of some of the training exercises being performed at the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) London Airbase located at the Timehri on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD).
Reporters along with cameramen from the various media houses and United States (US) Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah Ann Lynch, departed the Eugene Correia International Airport at Ogle, East Coast Demerara (ECD) for the base, a little after 09:00hrs. Taking them there were three US UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopters.
In less than an hour, the Black Hawk Helicopters landed at the London Airbase and reporters were able to receive details on some of the training exercises being conducted there and feedback from some of local GDF ranks participating in the exercise.
One of the GDF Air Corps’ young helicopter pilots, Lieutenant Dwight Bonus was willing to share how ranks under his command and colleagues have benefitted from training in “rescue or search and recovery operations”.
He pointed specifically to the “hoisting training” with the use of a winch that both the US Black Hawk helicopters and the Defence Force’s new Bell 412 EPI helicopter are equipped with.
“As anyone would know, flying over Guyana, it is mostly jungle terrain. So should an aircraft go down, you would need a winch to get persons in or you would need a fast rope to get persons in on the ground to recover bodies or persons alive during a search and rescue operations,” Bonus told reporters.
The lieutenant continued, “So being experienced as to how a winch actually operates will allow us to use this new capability, because as you know, we have our Bell 412 Helicopter which is also equipped with a winch.”
“So given that we would have had a chance to do demonstrations with the Americans, it will help our guys to become more proficient in conducting those type of operations should the need be in the future,” Bonus said as he concluded his brief interview with the reporters.
Apart from the hoisting training, GDF ranks along with soldiers from other participating countries are also being trained in Casevac, Helocast, Paradrop and other airborne operations. A casevac military operation is procedure where a causality who is a person killed or injured by war or accident is evacuated from the scene by air.
A UH-Black Hawk instructed pilot attached to US Airforce, Tharles Barba, also explained to reporters of what some of these other operations entails.
“Helocast is just getting different teams into the water, whether they are getting into a boat or swimming towards shore,” Barba explained.
He further related, “On the 24th (June), we are doing Paradrop operations”. He detailed that the Paradrop operations has to do with parachuting troops from an aircraft to a specific location.
When asked whether the airborne operations will benefit countries that do not have Black Hawk Helicopters, Tharles responded, “The overall mission that we are doing, we are still able to do with other airframes.”
Guyana recently received its Bell 412 EPI Helicopter that it had procured from the US for $414M. The Belle 412 EPI aircraft is an upgraded version of the multipurpose Bell 412 helicopter which can be used for a number of missions such as, search-and-rescue, emergency medical service (EMS), firefighting, coast guard, airborne surveillance, counter-terrorism, law enforcement and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) missions.
Kaieteur News also witnessed on Friday that some of the GDF ranks being coached on how to service and maintain the Bell Helicopter at the London Airbase.
The Tradewinds’ exercise is an annual multinational Caribbean security exercise, which is sponsored by the US Southern Command. This year, Guyana is the host for the exercises and a total of 24 countries are said to be participating in the ongoing operation.
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