Now we are borrowing Russian helicopters to fight the Taliban

British frontline troops in Afghanistan are so short of helicopters and transport planes that they are being bailed out by the Russians.

The Mail on Sunday has established that the Ministry of Defence is using civilian Russian-built Mi-8 and Mi-26 transport helicopters to ferry supplies and soldiers in Afghanistan. The pilots are freelance Russians and Ukrainians.

Britain is also hiring massive commercial Russian Antonov aircraft to fly vehicles and heavy equipment from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Afghanistan.

Even more extraordinary is that elite British special forces troops have been forced to use helicopters from a Third World nation to mount covert operations because of a desperate lack of UK aircraft.

Senior defence sources have confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that the SAS, the SBS and the Special Forces Support Group are using troop-carrying helicopters on loan from another country's army.

The aircraft - camouflaged but carrying no British insignia - are flown by an elite team of UK Army Air Corps pilots, trained at a secret special forces base in Afghanistan.

British three-man crews - two pilots and an engineer - use the helicopters to fly about 24 special forces soldiers at a time on dangerous night-time missions deep into Taliban strongholds.

The humiliation of Britain's crack regiments having to beg a lift is a stark example of the shortages of men and machinery that sparked the row between the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, and Gordon Brown.

Britain's top soldier - who himself had to hitch a lift in a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan last week because of a lack of British aircraft - found himself the subject of a Labour dirty tricks campaign after demanding 'more boots on the ground' and extra helicopters.

Eight British Chinook troop-carrying helicopters designed for special forces' use have been lying dormant in an air-conditioned hangar at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire since they were delivered in 2001.

The Chinook 3As, which cost a total of £259million, are white elephants that cannot be flown, as the Ministry of Defence failed to ask Boeing for the rights to the avionics software.

Now the Chinooks are being downgraded, at a cost of £60million, into normal utility helicopters. It will be at least 18 months before the work is completed. Then, air crews will have to be trained to fly them, which could take another nine months.

Meanwhile, one RAF Chinook which has flown in Helmand has been cannibalised from two aircraft. The rear of the 'cut and shut' Chinook came from a helicopter seized from the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands war; the front from one which crashed in Oman in 1999.

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said: 'To have eight Chinooks sitting idle since 2001 and to have to beg and borrow from allies shows just how much Labour have failed to prepare our forces properly.'

Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commander, added: 'We have been warning the Government for years that there are not enough helicopters in Afghanistan. It is disgraceful that our troops have not been given the equipment they need.'

An Army source said many senior officers were 'dismayed' about being forced to borrow helicopters.

He said: 'Aviation is the key to success. It gives you freedom of movement and the element of surprise.

'Without enough aircraft, we cannot chase down the bad guys and have to take higher risks by using wheeled vehicles. There are parts of southern Afghanistan which are now packed with improvised explosive devices.

'One advantage of using borrowed helicopters is that no one knows who we are. They just think it is a helicopter full of Afghan soldiers. But we would much rather be flying in our own than having to borrow them.'

Between eight and ten Chinooks are being used in Helmand, but are not available to special forces as they are needed for normal operations. Sea Kings and Lynxes can only carry six very limited numbers of passengers, and their engines overheat in the desert heat, making them unsuitable for special forces.

An MoD spokesman said: 'We use the best transportation available to supply our troops.'

On the cannibalised Chinook, he said: 'It is common for the RAF to use good parts of unserviceable airframes in the maintenance of others. There are no safety implications and to scrap an entire aircraft would be a huge waste of taxpayers' money.'

He added: 'We never discuss our special forces.'

...but U.S. marines will soon get high-tech remote-controlled helicopters
The risk of U.S. marines being killed by roadside bombs in Helmand Province is set to be dramatically reduced with the introduction of unmanned, remote-control supply helicopters, writes PETER ALMOND.

American forces in Afghanistan already have about 120 helicopters - six times as many helicopters as the British, who are forced to send supply convoys overland, putting them at the mercy of roadside bombs.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Virginia is set to sign a contract for unmanned helicopters that can carry up to 6,000lb of supplies at a time and fly at night and in almost any weather conditions.

The Warfighting Laboratory has said it doesn't want to spend years developing a new machine, but favours an existing, proven, cheap aircraft that can fly high and in the hottest weather. And the marines want it to be ready to be used in Afghanistan by next February.

'This is a high priority for us,' said a Marine Corps spokesman. 'We want to get going with it as quickly as possible.'

Four designs are under consideration by the marines, but the front-runner is an unmanned version of the Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-MAX.

Unlike the British Army's six Lynx helicopters in Afghanistan, which have had to be recalled to install more powerful engines, the K-MAX has already proved itself at high altitude and in hot conditions with logging and construction industries.

'We see this as delivering supplies such as water, fuel and ammunition at a third of the cost of traditional helicopters,' said Terry Fogarty of Kaman Aerospace, makers of the K-MAX.

The K-MAX is designed to take off under the remote control of a ground operator who then holds it in a hover position while the load is attached to an underslung wire. The helicopter can then fly and guide itself at a height of up to 18,000ft and for as far as 75 miles.

At its destination, another ground operator takes control of the K-MAX's approach, the load is released and the helicopter can then either fly straight back to its base or have another load attached.

As the aircraft still has a cockpit, it can even carry passengers, such as wounded soldiers, if necessary.

The 6,000 U.S. Marines deployed in southern Helmand are operating in small groups of 200 that are widely dispersed and heavily dependent on resupply, particularly by air. Hence the reason for bringing an entire aviation brigade of 120 helicopters with them.

Britain's 9,000 troops still have only about 20 helicopters, but defence officials do not appear keen on unmanned helicopters.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: 'We are aware of unmanned helicopters but we do not consider the current unmanned helicopter projects sufficiently mature to meet our requirements. We do not therefore have any intention to procure this capability.'

But Charles Heyman, author of The British Army book series, said: 'This is the way to save lives, and if you don't buy things like this then you are probably and unnecessarily losing lives in resupply.'
DailyMail