San Diego Union-Tribune
April 17, 2002

Russian Transports Give Marine Copters Lift Home From S. Korea
By Jeanette Steele, Staff Writer

Fifteen years ago it would have been unthinkable.  A transport plane landed at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station Tuesday.  The cockpit crew spoke Russian, and Russian words were painted on the airplane's sides.  Inside, however, the cargo was all-American.  Marines stepped out of the massive Russian AN-124 Condor and unloaded three Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters from the plane's cargo hold.  They also praised the Russians for a nice, smooth ride.

It was the final step in an unusual journey that began when the Marines loaded eight helicopters into three Russian cargo planes at March Air Reserve Base in February and departed for an exercise they almost were forced to skip.  Camp Pendleton-based Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364 nearly got stranded at home, unable to find transportation to planned training maneuvers in South Korea.  The Air Force C-5 transport planes scheduled to carry it suddenly were needed for the war in Afghanistan.  In a first for the Marine Corps, it solved the problem by contracting with a Russian commercial airline, Volga-Dnepr, which emerged in 1990 using leased former Soviet military cargo planes.

The three Condors used, at a cost of $1 million per round trip, are so similar to the American C-5 that few changes were needed to make the Marines' Sea Knights fit.  "It's very, very unique," Lt. Col. Mike Scott, squadron commander, said of the situation.  A Marine for more than 20 years, Scott joined when the United States still saw the Soviet Union as its greatest threat, and he flew into Moscow as part of a presidential detail when Red Square was still "red."  "But after the Cold War, I think it's a great asset," said Scott, who like the rest of his crew wore a special squadron patch with writing in Russian and Korean to mark the unusual deployment.

The squadron, nicknamed the "Purple Foxes," took part in Foal Eagle, a regularly scheduled exercise in South Korea.  The helicopter crews partnered with South Korean troops to practice countering sneak attacks from North Korea -- one of the three nations President Bush recently labeled the "axis of evil" because of their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  The Marine helicopters carried South Korean fighters into remote areas and hovered while the troops rappelled to the ground.  Conditions were harsh, with poor visibility due to South Korea's overcast skies and a sandstorm that blew in from the Gobi Desert and halted the exercises for two days, Scott said.

The 170-person Marine squadron flew a combined 500 hours while in South Korea, 200 of which were at night.  U.S. Marines based in Japan also took part in Foal Eagle. They practiced amphibious landings in South Korea, while the Miramar-based helicopter squadron concentrated on special forces operations.  It was good experience, especially because South Korea and the Middle East are two parts of the world the Miramar-based Marine Air Wing is designated to cover if problems erupt, Scott said.  "You can do the training in a lot of places," he said. "However, you're `in country,' so you are actually seeing the real area that you would fly in for real-world contingencies."

Information provided by:
    Glenn F. "Smoke" Burgess, Colonel USMC(Ret)