Hungarian troops’ equipment arrives home from Estonia aboard giant airlifter

The aircraft transported altogether 16 containers and 10 vehicles to Estonia for NATO’s largest military medical exercise, and their return to Hungary required rather complex logistic planning. Captain Gergő Deregi, an officer of the Movement Coordination Directorate, HDF Logistic Support Command pointed out that there are air, public road and railway options for transporting such a big amount of material: in this case, the equipment was travelling aboard aircraft and on public roads.

The air transport was implemented within the framework of the Strategic Airlift International Solution (SALIS) program, which involves Hungary as well. Launched in 2006, this international initiative provides the NATO member states participating in the program – including the founding member Hungary ‒ guaranteed access to high-capacity cargo aircraft, especially to the Antonov An-124-100, and the Ilyushin Il-76. The last phase of the international cooperation is redeployment, “which we can now see is in two parts, too” – said Captain Deregi, already in Budapest, in referring to the movement within the SALIS framework.

The mission was flown by the Antonov An-124 Ruslan airlifter. Today, this type is one of the highest-capacity cargo aircraft on the market, which is expressly optimized for the intercontinental transport of bulk oversized strategic cargo. Its maximum load capacity is 120,000 kg, and its cargo bay can hold as many as 12 ISO containers at the same time. During this latest redeployment from the Baltics, the Ruslan transported altogether 12 containers and four motor vehicles in two turns back to Hungary.

The personnel participating in the exercise arrived in Kecskemét aboard the Hungarian Defence Forces’ Airbus A319 on June 21. The homecoming contingent was welcomed by Colonel Árpád Szabó, Chief of Staff, HDF Medical Centre. Speaking about the Baltic trial of strength, Lieutenant Colonel Ádám Bus, Commander, Role 2 Hospital, HDF Medical Center told us that to him, the most exciting and biggest challenge was a simulation: according to the scenario, two members dropped from the Hungarian surgical team and were replaced by two Belgian doctors: “The handover-takeover process was a serious challenge. We had to make sure that the participants learn the procedures at an early stage so they can work on together using them” – said the lieutenant colonel after the successful NATO military medical Exercise Vigorous Warrior.