Maj. Caleb Nimmo, an Air Force advisor to the Afghan National Army Air Corps, has become the first US pilot to fly a Russian-built Mi-35 attack helicopter in combat, according to a NATO Training Mission Afghanistan release May 16. Details of this mission were not provided. Nimmo is assigned to the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing Combined Air Power Transition Force in Kabul where he supporters the ANAAC’s 377th Rotary Wing Squadron, along with advisors from the Czech Republic and Hungary. “The Afghans are very skilled pilots and they teach me things all the time,” said Nimmo, who has experience flying UH-1 Huey helicopters, T-6 trainers, and MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor airplanes. The Air Force now uses the Mi-35, dubbed the Hind, as an aggressor aircraft in Red Flag exercises at Nellis, AFB, Nev.
Lockheed Martin plans to enter the Advanced Tactical Trainer fray to supply the Air Force with a new jet to bridge undergraduate flight instruction and fighter training units, but the company declined to say whether it will offer a T-50A derivative, a different non-developmental airplane, or a clean-sheet design. Its…