THE Philippine Air Force (PAF) will be holding airlift operations exercise next week with counterparts from 13 countries, including United States and Japan.
The biennial exercise, dubbed the Pacific Airlift Rally 2023 (PAR-23), will be held in Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, Clark Air Base in Pampanga, and Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu from August 14 to 18.
The five-day exercise, co-hosted by PAF and the United States Air Force, will also involve participants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste.
“The PAR-23 will bring together participants (from the 14 countries) for airborne training exercises, airlift operations, logistical planning table-top exercises, and subject matter expert exchanges (SMEEs) that will focus on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations,” said PAF spokeswoman Col. Maria Consuelo Castillo.
Castillo said the exercise participants will also “practice mission planning, cargo handling and loading, multinational air-land and airdrop operations, as well as medical transport operations, among others.”
She said a C-130 plane from the PAF will exercise with C-130s from US, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia at Benito Ebuen Air Base “for the flight training portion of the PAR-23 field training exercise.”
“They will practice airlift techniques that would be essential in the conduct of future humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations,” said Castillo.
She said the tabletop exercise of PAR-23 “will center on HADR airlift operations and logistical planning for aircraft deployment staging, cargo and movement mission planning, and multinational airlift capability analysis for airlift mission schedule prioritization.”
“These are all vital components in airlift mission planning essential not only for local operations but also during multinational HADR operations,” said Castillo.
Discussions in the SMEEs will include C130 aircraft maintenance, austere and expeditionary medicine, advance patient movement and evacuation, air force defense and force protection, building resiliency through military bands, and chaplain service-related topics, said Castillo.
