Article - Melgar Colombia - Helicopter School of the Armed Forces - April 2018

Melgar Colombia - Helicopter School of the Armed Forces

The Helicopter School of the armed Forces known as Escuela de Helicópteros para las Fuerza Armadas de la Fuerza Aérea Colombiana is the largest of the helicopter training centres in Central and South America, with over 600 pilots graduating the Rotary Wing Training Course (RWTC) from 2002 to present day. The Helicopter base known as Lieutenant Colonel Luis Francisco Pinto Parra Air Base is located at the town of Melgar in the municipality of Tolima in the central region of Colombia.

Comando Aereo de Combate No.4

Many seperate commands form the Comando Aereode Combate No4 at Melgar, one of these commands is the Grupo de Combate 41 which consists of the following Squadrons;

Escuadrón de Combate 411 B-212

Escuadrón de Asalto Aéreo 412 C-208 & UH-1H-II

Escuadrón de Ataque 413 H-369HS & MD-500E

Helicopter Training School (HTS)

The HTS was originally established in 1954 with surplus US Army Bell OH-13 Sioux and three Hiller OH-23B Ravens, however in 1960 they were all replaced by Bell UH-1H and UH-1N and then joined by Bell 212 in 1971.The facility was threatened by closure due to minimal helicopters in 2000, however the base commander saw a successful future as a regional training facility for the armed forces and police and he devised a plan which was called Plan Colombia. This was a US backed initiative which aimed to train more pilots to fight insurgency on the war on drugs, 17 Bell UH-1H Hueys were then loaned from the USA, then during 2005 the centre was awarded US Army certification and a common unified standard of training was given to all Helicopter training. Originally pilots were being sent to Fort Rucker in Alabama United States for their training, however the establishment of a certified training facility in Colombia meant that there were significant savings in costs.

Merida Intitiative (RHTC)

In 2009, Mexico and the United States launched the Merida Initiative which resulted in the creation of The Regional Helicopter Training Centre (RHTC) located at the base and were provided with 19 Bell OH-58 Kiowas in order to replace the resident UH-1Hs. The Merida Intitiative allowed for a higher level of training to be provided and more advanced facilities to be developed. In 2014 a Forward Operating Base (FOB) was added to the RHTC thus allowing training flights which included practice landings at the FOB, this airfield was known as Flandes.

In 2015 the Triangular Plan was formed, this brought the training requirements together for various South America countries and also included the United States, these were;

Colombia

Costa Rica

Chile

Dominican Republic

Guatamala

Honduras

Mexico

Pananma

Peru

USA

With this plan, some 60 Bell TH-67 helicopters were delivered from the US Army Training Command at Fort Rucker between 2016-2017. In current years the curriculum is widening in efforts to provide training courses in English with the aims to attract students from African countries. For Officers the RHTC provides the following training courses;

Initial Entry Rotary Wing Course

Instructor Pilot Course

Night/NVG Course

Maintenance Test Pilot Course

For the initial Entry Course only the B-206 & TH-67 are used but for all other courses the UH-1H-II, B-212 and H-500 are also used. Other non officer courses are provided and these include:

Search And Rescue (SAR)

Fire fighting

Maintenance

Armament

Technical Inspection

Advanced tactics

The basic training course involves at least 30 hours simulator training and no less than 99 hours in the air over a 8 month period. The school has 32 on site instructors and train on five courses, ever year at least 75 international students are trained. Newly trained pilots normally go on to fly the Bell UH-1H, Bell 212 and Sikorksy UH-60 & S-70 variants.

Across all courses 173 international students have been trained.

For the Colombian Armed Forces 476 students have qualified.

Aviation Report would like to thank Colonel Luis René Nieto Rojas, Lieutenant Colonel Camilo Andes Moyano Rodriguez, Major Monica Barrero of the Fuerza Aérea Colombiana Press Office, Aviation Press Ltd for the technical data and Paolo Di Biagio of JP4 Magazine for organising the visit.

Author Mark Forest

Photography Mark Forest & Duncan Campbell