But how combat controllers get to the LZ before it becomes the landing zone? They
are air-dropped or fastroped from helos. This means that these guys must be fully-
-fledged operators but with additional specialty skills, same as their counterparts from
USAF Special Tactics. Polish CCTs training is conducted in Polish Air Force University
in Dęblin, but graduates are not awarded a civilian aviation certificate. In United States
it's quite opposite as CCT's are certified as air traffic controllers by Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA). Most of the real-life trainings of NIL CCT's are conducted with
Polish 3rd Transport Aviation Wing, but every year they conduct some training opera-
tions with US Air Force 352nd Special Operations Wing units based in RAF Mildenhall
in Suffolk, England, mostly with 7th Special Operations Squadron operating CV-22B
Osprey tiltrotors.
Couple months ago, NIL Combat Control Teams were conducting day and night
training operations with Ospreys, setting up LZ's somewhere in southern Poland. The
unique combat experience gained by USAF crews in GWOT (Ospreys are combat
deployed since 2007) is now shared with Polish SOF to increase interallied cooperation
capabilities whenever and wherever they might be required in the future.
Bartek Bera
www.rbsphotos.com/bartosz-bera
REPORT
