National Guard of Foley schedules training day

By Jessica Vaughn / jessica@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 7/25/17

FOLEY - Ever want to watch as the Alabama National Guard performs a training exercise? Come September, that may very well be possible, as the National Guard here in the Foley area has requested to …

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National Guard of Foley schedules training day

Posted

FOLEY - Ever want to watch as the Alabama National Guard performs a training exercise? Come September, that may very well be possible, as the National Guard here in the Foley area has requested to use the Foley airport to perform helicopter training exercises.

During the July 17 council meeting, Sergeant First Class Holzer and Staff Sergeant Chapman put their request to the council.

“We’re still kind of new to this area, and what we’re trying to do is we have training requirements that we have to meet throughout the year,” Holzer said. Part of their training exercises includes the use of aviation helicopters, and they hope to use the facilities here in Foley rather than driving to Fort Rucker or Eglin Air Force Base.

“Our first step is the training we have planned in September,” Holzer continued. “It’s simply landing helicopters in an area, practicing getting on and off them. They’re basically going to take the guys up in helicopters and circle around, and they’ll come in and land and practice getting off and on.”

The original plan was to use the north part of the airport, but as of now they haven’t completed working with the aviation site to work out the details of flight plans. Before continuing with the area inspection, they first wanted to bring their request up for approval.

“I know some of the concerns were times and noise in the area,” said Holzer. “I think what we had originally planned was 10 o’clock am at the earliest that the aviation birds would actually be landing, and I don’t think we’d be past 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon.”

They are also looking to make the training public, and onlookers are not only welcome, but encouraged.

“Another side of it is that we’re trying to recruit for the area,” Holzer said. “We’re trying to reach out in the community, and we belong to the public. We’re here for you guys, and so people can come out and see, ‘so this is what they’re doing,’ and it might bring some attention to us … I know they use the Gulf Shores airport a lot, you see them flying over here all the time. We’re just trying to use Foley instead of going somewhere else.”

During the training, there will not be any type of blank ammunition or any combat training taking place, merely helicopter take offs, landings, and moving on and off a moving chopper. The National Guard are requesting a minimum of 2 helicopters to be used for the training, two UH-60s, otherwise known as Blackhawk Helicopters. However, there may be up to 4 helicopters to be used for the training, which would limit the number of trips taken to get everyone participating. Holzer also stated that they may be able to get a CH-47 helicopter as well.

They hope to get as many involved in the training as possible.

“Currently on our books right now we have about 100,” said Holzer. “When we started up over here, we had a handful of guys, there were only around 13 of us here, and that’s how much we’ve already built up in the area. So normally on a training site like this we might actually have 60 to 65 boots on the ground.”

The National Guard here in Foley will be performing the training exercises on Saturday, September 9, and they encourage anyone interested in watching the training in progress to come out.

Anyone interested in learning more about the National Guard or signing up themselves may check out their website at www.NationalGuard.com.