Maj. Caleb Nimmo, an Air Force advisor to the Afghan National Army Air Corps, has become the first US pilot to fly a Russian-built Mi-35 attack helicopter in combat, according to a NATO Training Mission Afghanistan release May 16. Details of this mission were not provided. Nimmo is assigned to the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing Combined Air Power Transition Force in Kabul where he supporters the ANAAC’s 377th Rotary Wing Squadron, along with advisors from the Czech Republic and Hungary. “The Afghans are very skilled pilots and they teach me things all the time,” said Nimmo, who has experience flying UH-1 Huey helicopters, T-6 trainers, and MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor airplanes. The Air Force now uses the Mi-35, dubbed the Hind, as an aggressor aircraft in Red Flag exercises at Nellis, AFB, Nev.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or perhaps even President Donald Trump will have the final say on a way forward for the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, the nominee to serve as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian said at his confirmation hearing.